



Copyright^?. 



copioam DEPOsm 



PAN-GERMANISM 



PAN-GERMANISM 



BY 
ROLAND G. USHER, Ph.D. 

Associate Professor of History 
Washington University^ St. Louis 



'The patriotism of nations ought to be selfish." 

Maoaice OB STAii., Of Germany. 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1913 



^K-^ 



COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY ROLAND G. USHER 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published February rgis 



A? J' 



©CI.A;532G29 



TO 

THAT ENERGETIC, CAPABLE ADMINISTRATOR 

THAT ENTHUSIASTIC STUDENT OF CONDITIONS 

THAT BEST OF COMRADES 

THAT DEAREST OF FRIENDS 

MY WIFE 



CONTENTS 

I. The Causes of German Aggression . 1 

II. The Myth of English Preponderance 

IN Europe .19 

III. The Fatal Weakness of Imperial Eng- 

land 37 

IV. France and Russia as the German sees 

Them 48 

V. The Strength of Imperial Germany 63 

VI. England and France as They see 

Themselves 73 

VII. The German View of the Economic 

Situation 88 

VIII. Prerequisites of Success . . . 101 

IX. First Steps 116 

X. The Significant Position of the 

United States 139 

XI. First Defeats 157 

XII. Victory from Defeat: the Tripoli- 
tan War 174 

XIII. The Aftermath of the Tripolitan 

War 187 

vu 



CONTENTS 

XrV. The Great Repulse: the Balkan 

Crisis 203 

XV. The Justifiability of Pan-Germanism 230 

XVI. The Probability of the Success of 
Pan-Germanism. I. Internal Weak- 
nesses 251 

XVII. The Probability of the Success of 
Pan-Germanism. II. External Weak- 
nesses 271 

APPENDIX 

The Speech of Premier Borden of 
Canada, advocating a New Naval 
Policy, with the Official Memoran- 
dum OF THE English Admiralty on 
England's Naval Position . • . 285 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 309 



PAN-GERMANISM 



PAN-GERMANISM 

CHAPTER I 

THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION 

FOR some years those at all familiar with cur- 
rent international affairs have known that 
it was the custom in the German navy to drink 
a toast, "To the day." Many people have 
hugged to themselves with glee the "secret" in- 
formation that the oflScers were drinking to the 
day when war should be declared against Eng- 
land, but few indeed seem to have realized the 
splendor of the vision now before German eyes, 
or the ideas of the international situation which 
makes victory seem so near as to send German 
blood coursing swiftly in the anticipation of tri- 
umph. The Germans aim at nothing less than 
the domination of Europe and of the world by 
the Germanic race.^ One of the fundamental 

* **To Germany, a [fleet] is merely a means to an end, and that 
end — if the Pan-Germans may be believed — is the destruction 
of the British Empire, the disruption of the French Republic, and 
the domination of the world." Archibald Hurd in the Fortnightly 
Review, xci. New Series, 785. Any one who will compare this article 
with the official Memorandum of the Admiralty prepared for the 
Dominion of Canada will have little doubt that it was "inspired." 

1 



PAN-GERMANISM 

errors, of which idealists and advocates of peace 
have been often guilty, is to treat this vast pro- 
ject as an unreality. In fact, it is already half 
accomplished. An equally mistaken view declares 
it the conception of an individual which chances 
to find for the moment a response in the German 
people, or a scheme which depends for its exist- 
ence upon the transient personal influence of a 
few men. No doubt, a few men only know the full 
details of the plans for the realization of this stu- 
pendous enterprise, but the whole nation is none 
the less fired by their spirit and is working as a 
unit in accordance with their directions. It is 
literally true that Germany has "become Bis- 
marckian. His heavy spirit has settled upon it. 
It wears his scowl. It has adopted his brutality, 
as it has his greatness. It has taken his criterion 
of truth, which is Germanic; his indifference to 
justice, which is savage; his conception of a state, 
which is sublime." "This nation has forgotten 
God in its exaltation of the Germanic race." 
Bombastic as such phrases are, they do convey 
some notion of the militant spirit which has 

Mr. Hurd quotes the following sentences from the speech of the 
Imperial Chancellor in the Reichstag on November 10, 1912: "For 
months past we have been living, and we are living now, in an atmos- 
phere of passion such as we have perhaps never before experienced 
in Germany. At the root of this feeling is the determination of Ger- 
many to make its strength and capability prevail in the world." 
See also the note at the end of this chapter. 



THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION 

roused that nation. When Li Hung Chang first 
learned from Bismarck the magnitude of these 
plans, he was skeptical. But before his brief stay 
in Germany was over, he wrote in his diary: 
"From all that I have seen, I am more than ever 
convinced that the Kaiser and Prince Bismarck 
meant what they said when they averred that the 
German Empire was destined to become a dom- 
inant factor in Europe." 

The magnitude of the conception, the degree 
of success already attained, the probability of its 
complete realization, the grave dangers which it 
involves to other nations, are most clearly demon- 
strated by the alarm manifested by the latter. 
England's foremost soldier. Lord Roberts, has 
publicly declared that she has never been in all 
her history in a position of greater peril. The 
leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons 
as solemnly affirmed the truth of his statement. 
Ten years ago, he said, England had command of 
every sea; now she held control only of the North 
Sea. Ten years ago her fleet was so strong that 
she could have confidently expected to emerge 
victorious from a struggle of the magnitude of the 
Napoleonic wars; to-day there was no such prob- 
ability. The ex-Premier of France, M. Clemen- 
ceau, said in public: "When I look towards the 
boundary of a territory which was French when 

3 



PAN-GERMANISM 

I was young, and when I see there the massing of 
lines of bayonets, I cannot dream of disarming." 
A crisis of the utmost gravity is thus facing 
Europe, and may at any moment result in a war 
whose consequences would be felt alike by the 
farmers in North Dakota, the operators in Lan- 
cashire cotton mills, and the savages in the heart 
of Africa. At the very least, it will overthrow 
political boundaries whose permanence has been 
thought assured; at the worst, it may involve the 
actual destruction of the prosperity and happiness 
of two or three of the largest countries in Europe 
and inflict untold misery upon the countless thou- 
sands dependent upon European rule in Africa 
and Asia. 

The vital factor in the modern international 
situation is the aggression of Germany, her deter- 
mination to expand her territories, to increase her 
wealth and power. Three centuries ago, Prussia 
was a tiny state whose many parts were separated 
from each other by the lands of her neighbors. 
Cut ojff from the sea on all sides, pushed hither 
by the oncoming Russian, dragged thither by the 
encroaching French, surrounded by tiny incom- 
petent states, her rulers saw in aggression the 
only possible method of preserving the national 
life. To prevent her absorption by her neighbors, 
she must grow faster than they; she must rob 

4 



THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION 

them instead of waiting for them to rob her. By 
war, she secured access to the Baltic; by war, she 
obtained the coveted Silesia; by war, she annexed 
much of Poland ; by war, she spread her aegis over 
the whole of northern Germany. The humiliation 
of conquest she knew under Napoleon, and she has 
never forgotten nor ever will that no natural bar- 
riers stand between her and the invader. Poverty- 
stricken, still recovering from the ravages of the 
wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 
menaced on all sides by powerful enemies, her 
only safety, Bismarck saw, lay in aggression, her 
only chance of victory depended upon striking 
the first blow. By this policy, she has built up 
one of the most powerful states in the world and 
one of the most populous and prosperous. But 
she has reached the boundaries of Germany; fur- 
ther expansion means the acquisition of what 
other nations now own. 

The logic of facts, proving the necessity of 
expansion, is, to such Germans as General Bern- 
hardi, unanswerable. The population has in- 
creased so rapidly that it is already difficult for 
efficient, well-trained men to secure any employ- 
ment. Not only is the superficial area of the 
country suitable for cultivation practically ex- 
hausted, but intensive scientific agriculture is 
speedily limiting the possibilities of the employ- 

5 



PAN-GERMANISM 

ment of more hands on the same acres or the fur- 
ther increase of the produce. Industry has grown 
at a stupendous rate, and the output from Ger- 
man factories is enormously in excess of the needs 
of even the growing population. Her exports 
per capita are $24 a year, as against England's 
$40, and France's $25, and she has not their ex- 
clusive colonial markets. Unless some outlet can 
be found for the surplus population, and a new 
and extensive market discovered for this enor- 
mous surplus production, prosperity will be in- 
evitably succeeded by bankruptcy. There will be 
more hands than there is work for, more mouths 
than there is food, and Germany must either get 
rid of the surplus mouths and hands or swell the 
surplus product by employing them at home, 
which cannot be done without entailing national 
ruin. Expansion is, therefore, the only alterna- 
tive, for the German considers equivalent to ruin 
the reduction of the pressure of population by 
emigration,* and the avoidance of overproduction 

* In 1881, nearly five per cent of the total population emigrated, 
and in the two succeeding years the number was scarcely smaller. 
Most of them came to the United States. German emigration at 
present is almost negligible. The name Pan-Germanism at first 
denoted a movement for the creation of a greater national unit out 
of these emigrants and the Germans at home. It aimed at main- 
taining the emigrants' devotion to the Fatherland by preserving 
their language and German habits, and at preventing their amal- 
gamation, so far as possible, into the nation to which they had mi- 
grated. Its hope was eventually to draw them back to the Father- 

6 



THE CAUSES OF^ GERMAN AGGRESSION 

by the proportionate reduction of output. For 
Germany to be thus forced to remain static in 
population and in wealth, while her neighbors 
continue to expand, England in her colonies, 
France in Morocco, Russia in Siberia and Turkes- 
tan, means that the date of her annihilation will 
be fixed by the rate of their growth. And such 
action on her part would compel her in fact to 
be an accessory to her own destruction, for her 
emigrants must strengthen her rivals both in the 
field and in the factory. To ask a German, there- 
fore, whether the expansion of Germany is desir- 
able, is merely to ask him whether he believes it 
desirable from any point of view for the German 
nation to survive. 

Already the boundaries of Germany in Europe 
have been pushed to their furthest extent; more 
territory can be added only at the expense of other 
nations, either of her powerful rivals, France and 
Russia, or of her weaker neighbors, Belgium, 
Holland, Denmark, and Sweden. Nor would the 
accession of such territory solve the difficulty. 
All European nations are already experiencing to 

land or t» provide for them new homes under the German flag 
elsewhere. The methods employed were mainly educational, by 
means of German newspapers, active German departments in 
American universities, German societies, frequent visits to the 
great German " colonies " by German authors and professors. This 
movement, however, was soon merged into and dwarfed by the 
greater scheme now known as Pan-Germanism. 

7 



PAN-GERMANISM 

some degree the necessity of an outlet for their 
surplus population and manufactures. A war for 
expansion in Europe would be without purpose 
and could only be detrimental to all. Germany 
must find some territory suitable for development 
by her own people which is not already choked 
with men and women. She is seeking the coun- 
terpart of the fertile plains of western Canada, 
of the rich valleys of northern Africa, where her 
people may build a new Germany whose existence 
will strengthen her and not her rivals. But such 
a promised land, tenanted only by native races, 
is not to be found. Every really available spot is 
held by England, France, or Russia. Germany 
can, therefore, obtain colonies suitable for her 
purposes only at the expense of these last. This 
is what is meant by the oft-reiterated statements 
that England, France, and Russia are by their 
very existence inimical to Germany's welfare, 
that, if she is to escape ruin, she must fight them. 
The alternative to colonies is access to some 
new market for her products, so vast in extent 
and so unlimited in its capacity of continued ab- 
sorption, that her surplusage of population can 
be provided with work at home, and thus pro- 
sperity and the increase of the national strength 
indefinitely insured. The total annual imports 
into her own colonies she knows to be well under 

8 



THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION 

ten millions of dollars; the exports from England 
to the English colonies alone she knows to total 
several hundred millions of dollars.^ Such a mar- 
ket she is determined to have, cost what it may. 
One other fact marks England as the greatest 
obstacle in the path of her legitimate growth. 
The English Channel is the only available safe 
passageway for her merchant fleets. The voyage 
round the British Isles is long and during the 
winter months positively dangerous even for 
steamships. Natural conditions, therefore, by 
compelling Germany to use the Channel, force 
her to expose her commerce to the assaults of the 
English fleet so long as the latter controls the 
Channel. Even if she should acquire colonies and 
a great market, she cannot really possess them 
until she acquires a highroad to them safe from 
the attacks of her enemies. Short of conquering 
England and France, she can never free her com- 
merce from actual danger; without a great fleet 
in the North Sea, strong enough to terrify England 
into inaction, she cannot even be assured of the 
continuance of her present freedom of passage. ^ 

* The leading customers of England in 1910 were in millions of 
poimds: India, 45 millions; Germany, 37 millions; the United States, 
31 millions; Australia, 27 millions; France, 22 millions; Canada, 19 
millions. England's exports to these three colonies were 91 millions 
and her exports to the three nations were 90 millions. 

2 The preface of the German Naval Bill of 1900 stated: "For the 
protection of our oversea trade and our colonies, there is only one 

9 



PAN-GERMANISM 

Her fleet, therefore, seems to her merely the 
guarantee of her present position, and it will con- 
tinue to be a guarantee only as long as its size 
makes it formidable. Merely to retain what she 
now has, Germany is condemned to increase her 
navy at any pace the English see fit to set. Some- 
thing more will be absolutely essential if the dire 
consequences of an economic crisis are not to im- 
poverish her and pave the way for her ultimate 
destruction at the hands of her hereditary enemies, 
France and Russia. 

To secure a share of the world's trade in some 
fashion which will not expose her to the attacks of 
the English fleet, and which will create an empire 
less vulnerable in every way than she believes the 
British Empire to be, an overland route to the East 
must be found. The Germans consider perfectly 
feasible the construction of a great confederation 
of states including Germany, Austria, Hungary, 

means: a strong fleet. Under the present circumstances, the only 
means for protecting Germany's oversea trade and colonies is: Ger- 
many must possess a fleet of such strength that a war, even with the 
strongest naval power, would involve such risks as to jeopardize the 
position of that power. For that purpose, it is not absolutely neces- 
sary that the German fleet be as strong as the fleet of the greatest 
naval power, for a great naval power will not generally be in a posi- 
tion to concentrate all its forces against Germany. But, even if the 
greatest naval power should succeed in meeting us with a fleet of 
superior strength, the defeat of a strong German fleet would so greatly 
weaken its own power, that, notwithstanding its victory, its own 
position on the seas would no longer be secure." 

10 



THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION 

the Balkan States, and Turkey, which would con- 
trol a great band of territory stretching southeast 
from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf. A railway 
from Constantinople to Baghdad would effectually 
tie the great trunk lines, leading from the Rhine 
and Danube valleys, to Constantinople and the 
Persian Gulf, and so establish a shorter route to 
India than that via Suez. Egypt, Syria, Arabia, 
Persia, India herself, the mother of nations, would 
fall into German hands and be held safe from con- 
quest by this magnificent overland route to the 
East. Pan-Germanism is, therefore, in the first 
place, d defensive movement for self-preserva- 
tion, for escaping the pressure of France and 
Russia, both bent on her destruction. It is, in the 
second place, an offensive movement directed 
against England, its object, the conquest of the 
English possessions in the Mediterranean and in 
Asia. She expects thus to obtain an outlet for 
her surplus population and manufactures and to 
create an empire as little vulnerable politically, 
economically, or strategically as any the world has 
yet seen. 

In reply to the outcries from other nations, de- 
nouncing these plans as unprovoked aggression 
and lacking in morality, as a reversion to the forc- 
ible methods of bygone centuries whose brutali- 
ties the world long ago outgrew, the Germans 

11 



PAN-GERMANISM 

derisively point to the presence of the English in 
India, of the French in Morocco, of the Russians 
in Manchuria, of the United States in Panama. 
They insist that their aims and methods are ab- 
solutely identical with those their detractors have 
so long employed. Now that the latter's work is 
complete and their own futures assured, they are 
no doubt eager to establish "moral," "ethical," 
and "legal" precepts whose acceptance by other 
nations would insure them the undisturbed pos- 
session of all they now hold. This, the Germans 
admit, is but natural and not blameworthy; but 
they ought not to expect other nations to sub- 
scribe to such principles from motives of love or 
admiration.^ General Bernhardi, a man whose 
undoubted attainments and learning compel the 
respect of his enemies, and whose following in 
Germany is large in numbers and influential in 
character, declares openly that might is right, and 
that right is decided by war. He scoffs at such 
ideas of ethics and morality as his critics repre- 
sent, and insinuates that, if war happened to 

* "That any one should act in politics out of complaisance or from 
a sentiment of justice, others may expect from us, but not we from 
them. . . . Every government takes solely its own interests as the 
standard of its actions, however it may drape them with deductions 
of justice or sentiment. . . . My belief is that no one does anything 
for us, unless he can at the same time serve his own interests." Bis- 
marck, Reflections and Reminiscences, English translation, A. J. 
Butler, New York and London, 1899, respectively, pp. 176, 173, 202. 

12 



THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION 

promise other nations at this moment as many 
advantages as it does Germany, they would hold 
views similar to his upon that subject. 

With him, the Germans as a whole refuse to 
admit the validity of any theoretical notions 
whose application would in any way restrict or 
interfere with Germany's "full share in the mas- 
tery of the world." Do they not see about them 
the splendidly tangible results of the investment ^ 
of the huge war indemnity paid by France to 
ransom her lands from the German army? Do 
they not know that the indemnity created modem 
Germany? As a prominent German manufacturer 
said to the writer two years ago, "Next time we 
will ask five times as much." In the face of the 
undeniable territorial gains, equal in amount to 
several times the area of Prussia and Branden- 
burg combined in 1640, in the face of that five 
billions of francs which they have invested and 
reinvested with such brilliant success for forty 
years, how can the Germans be expected to believe 
that the fruits of peace are greater than those 

* The indemnity was nominally spent in defraying the cost of the 
war and in improving the anny and fortifications. It was indirectly 
distributed to the nation and to individuals; for the army was the 
nation in arms, the debts were mostly owed to Gennans, the labor 
and materials employed on the new works were German. However 
the transaction was recorded formally on the books of the state, the 
nation itself received the money either in wages or by the remission 
of taxes. 

13 



PAN-GERMANISM 

of war? Is not the very existence of Imperial 
Germany due to war? Could it conceivably have 
been created by anything else? Will anything less 
preserve it? They deny the validity of any par- 
ticular set of ethical notions of right and wrong 
to decide issues vital to the continued existence 
of the Germanic race. If such considerations are 
to be dragged into the discussion, the notion of 
the relativity of truth, the doctrine that moral and 
ethical standards are not fixed but merely reflect 
the stage of progress each particular age has 
reached, the Darwinian doctrine of the survival 
of the fittest, all seem to them infinitely more 
satisfactory theoretical grounds for action than 
what Bismarck sneeringly called "the English 
phrases about humanity." 

The most significant question now before the 
Anglo-Saxon race, therefore, is the truth or fal- 
sity of those notions of strategical geography, of 
military and naval organization, of finance and 
commerce upon which these vast schemes are 
based. If the factors, on which the Germans rely, 
are what they think they are, the domination of 
the world by Germany and her allies can be only 
a question of time. If they are not valid, the 
world will certainly develop along different lines. 
So widely do the economic and political interests 
ramify, so completely are all sections of the globe 

14 



THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION 

influenced by them, that nothing can happen, 
from this moment until the final decision of the 
issue, which will not vitally affect it or be vitally 
affected by it. The Boer War, Morocco, the 
strangling of Persia, the war in Tripoli, the Bal- 
kan crisis are only incidents in this gigantic strug- 
gle in which the very pawns are kingdoms and the 
control of the entire globe the stake. Indeed, the 
forces at the disposal of the combatants are so 
comprehensive that navies and armies might al- 
most be called incidental factors, which it may or 
may not be necessary to employ, and which might 
not indeed be decisive for victory or defeat. 

Naturally, even to sketch the history of the 
world in its relation to the modern crisis, even to 
enumerate the multifold phases, political, con- 
stitutional, economic, military, which it neces- 
sarily displays, is an impossibility in anything 
briefer than a series of volumes. An attempt to 
describe merely the features and factors essential 
to a comprehension of the most significant phases 
of Pan-Germanism alone will require the omission 
of much that is important and will make im- 
possible any account at all of the narrative of 
recent history. What has happened, what is hap- 
pening, is of infinitely less consequence than the 
scope and character of the German plans. The 
most vital fact for the Anglo-Saxon race to grasp 

15 



PAN-GERMANISM 

at present is the German view of European his- 
tory, of European life and ideals, their estima- 
tion of the comparative strength of political, eco- 
nomic, and ethical forces. From a grasp of these 
points, and from it alone, can we hope to under- 
stand the apparently inexplicable and inconsist- 
ent ideas upon which has been based the most 
audacious attempt yet made consciously to direct 
through a long term of years the evolution of a 
nation and the fate of the world. ^ The following 
chapters, therefore, will attempt to describe Eu- 
rope and Germany, as the Germans see them, as 
the necessary prelude to a brief statement of the 
progress Germany has made toward a realization 
of her scheme and a description of the attempts 
of her "victims" to frustrate it. Then, there will 

1 The extent to which the German nation as a whole is conscious 
of the existence of Pan-Germanism is not demonstrable. There can 
be no doubt that the Government has consistently attempted to 
shape public opinion in favor of it. Bismarck's notion of public opin- 
ion is enlightening. He said to Crispi : " Public opinion is but a great 
river formed by a quantity of small streams, one of which is the 
Government stream. If the Government would but swell its waters 
sufficiently, it would have a determinative influence upon the great 
public current. If, on the contrary, the Government wants to meas- 
ure the strength of all the other streams, which, separately, are less 
powerful than its own, it must be overwhelmed by the union of their 
forces. A Government acting thus would be guilty of unpardonable 
neglect of precautions." Crispi, Memoirs, ii, 163, London, 1912. 

In the Fortnightly Review, xci. New Series, 785, Archibald Hurd 
states: "A section of powerful politicians and vested interests, with 
the support of the Emperor and the Marine Amt, under Grand- 
Admiral von Tirpitz, have obtained control of the Government and 
the most influential newspapers, and dominate German policy." 

16 



THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION 

be an opportunity to weigh the scheme in the bal- 
ance, to point out its elements of strength and 
weakness, and thus to arrive at some approxima- 
tion of the probability of its success or failure. 



; 



NOTE 



The following testimony was given under oath in a 
court of law by the editor of the Rheinisch-Westfdlische 
Zeitung in a political libel suit instituted by him 
against the editor of the Grenzhoten. It was printed 
only [so far as can be learned] by the Rheinisch-West- 
fdlische Zeitung and the Tdglische Rundschau, but was 
not denied by the gentlemen named in it, and seems to 
have been suppressed so far as was possible. The fol- 
lowing translation is taken from a semi-official article 
in the Fortnightly Review, xci, New Series, 462. Whether 
or not the words credited to the important personages 
quoted were ever used, they express sentiments which 
are widely believed to represent their views. After all, 
it is not so much the truth itself, but what intelligent 
and sincere men believe to be the truth, which influ- 
ences the trend of human events. 

"Mr. Class, the President of the Pan-Germanic 
League, is prepared to state upon oath before this court ^ 
that the Secretary of State for Foreign AflFairs, Herr 
von Kiderlen Wachter, writing to him from Kissingen, 
requested Mr. Class to meet him at the Hotel Pfalzer 
Hof in Mannheim. During the interview, which occu- 
pied several hours, Herr von Kiderlen Wachter stated: 
*The Pan-Germanic demand for the possession of 
Morocco is absolutely justified. You can absolutely 
* The italics are not in the original. 
17 



"jf 



PAN-GERMANISM 

rely upon it that the Government will stick to Morocco. 
Monsieur Cambon is wriggling before me like a worm. 
The German Government is in a splendid position. 
You can rely upon me and you will be very pleased 
with our Morocco policy. I am as good a Pan-German 
as you are* ^ On the 1st of July, Mr. Class called at the 
German Foreign Office, and, failing to find Herr von 
Kiderlen Wachter, was received by Herr Zimmermann, 
the Under-Secretary. Mr. Zimmermann told him: 
*You come at an historic hour. To-day the Panther 
appears before Agadir and at this moment (12 o'clock 
mid-day) the Foreign Cabinets are being informed of 
its mission. The German Government has sent two 
agents provocateurs to Agadir and these have done their 
duty very well. German firms have been induced to 
make complaints and to call upon the Government in 
Berlin for protection. It is the Government's intention 
to seize the district and it will not give it up again. 
The German people require absolutely a settlement 
colony. Please prevent, wherever in the Press you have 
influence, the raising of claims for compensation else- 
where. Possibly France will offer us the Congo. How- 
ever, the German does not want compensation else- 
where, but a part of Morocco.' " 

1 The italics are not in the original. 



CHAPTER II 

THE MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE IN 

EUROPE 

ENGLAND, with all her bluster and show," 
said Bismarck to Li Hung Chang, "has a 
hundred weak points, and she knows that a con- 
flict with a power nearly her equal will mean her 
undoing." A vital part of the German scheme 
for the control of the world depends upon the 
belief that power is not absolute, but comparative. 
Not alone Germany's strength, but her rivals' 
weakness, will be significant factors for victory 
or defeat. To Germans it is an error to suppose 
that England is decadent. The fundamental mis- 
conception is to suppose that England ever was 
strong. She has been strong by reason of others' 
weakness, by the use of others' resources, by the 
spoils of conquest. She has not less cohesion than 
before, not fewer vital interests in common with 
her dependencies. The British Empire has never 
possessed cohesion; never has had a common, 
vital economic, or geographical interest; has al- 
ways been a sham, a figment of the imagination, 
a glittering generality whose unreality has re- 

19 



PAN-GERMANISM 

mained concealed only by reason of the inability 
of other nations to perceive it.^ 

England's naval power has been the result of 
accident, not of genius, think the Germans, and 
has rested chiefly upon the accidents of geography 
and geology. The formation of the British Isles, 
the meeting of strong oceanic currents to the north 
of them, made the narrow passageway between 
England and Europe the most important single 
bit of water in the world. The commerce of north- 
ern Europe was forced to pass through the Channel 
because it could not safely go round. The naviga- 
tion of this safer passage was made exceedingly 
difficult for wooden sailing ships by the peculiar 
formation of the shores and by the treacherous 
tides, winds, and currents. Chance had, more- 
over, placed most of the natural harbors on the 
English side. There was, indeed, between Brest 
and Hamburg but one spot on the continental 
side which might serve as a base of operations for 
a great fleet, the district now known as the Neth- 

* The author begs his readers to bear carefully in mind that he is 
attempting in the following chapters to expound the German view 
of the situation rather than what he believes to be the truth. Natu- 
rally, a view of the international situation, upon which a great nation 
of intelligent people is willing to base a policy on whose success may 
depend their national future, will contain many factors whose truth 
is not to be denied by any impartial student. The general conclu- 
sions, derived from considering these obviously true facts, may, how- 
ever, be vulnerable. 

go 



MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE 

eriands. The constant use of the Channel neces- 
sarily involved, therefore, the use of English har- 
bors as a refuge from storms. Nor were the diffi- 
culties of navigation limited to the passage of ships 
through the Channel. To sail across that narrow 
way, especially with a fleet, was literally an almost 
impossible feat except from one or two points on 
the European shore, the more favorable of which 
was the Netherlands. The natural barriers to 
invasion thus furnished by the Channel so limited 
the possibilities of assault that its defense became 
comparatively simple. Invasion after invasion, 
decade after decade, was defeated because the 
unfavorable weather, continuing for weeks at a 
time, made it impossible for the enemy to leave 
Europe. These natural barriers are gone forever, 
destroyed by the steamship, which is not limited 
in the time of its departure nor in its course by 
winds and waves. ^ Never again can an English 

^ The German Navy League issued in 1912 a book entitled, 
Deutschland Sei Wach, in which this statement was made prominent: 
"The maintenance of Great Britain's naval supremacy which has 
been kept unimpaired during the last century, has, through the rela- 
tive strength of the German fleet, become impossible in the future. 
That is the great historic process which we are seeing. It is no more 
to be imagined that England can destroy the German fleet without 
seriously compromising her own supremacy." At the end of the vol- 
ume in the very largest of type stands the following: "Germany 
must be strong on land, so strong that she can vanquish every oppo- 
nent, but she must also be so strong at sea that she need not fear any 
opponent, because the risk of a naval war would be so great that it 
would appear too great even to the strongest naval Power." 

21 



PAN-GERMANISM 

fleet adopt Nelson's tactics of allowing the 
weather to guard the Channel while he crushed 
the enemy elsewhere. Napoleon, waiting at 
Boulogne, once truly said that seven hours of 
darkness and a fair wind would change the fate of 
the world. In the next war the invader will not 
need to pray for either. 

The Germans also correctly appreciate the fact 
that the English control of the Baltic — the only 
considerable source of naval stores from which 
wooden fleets might be built or maintained — 
was a vital factor in their naval supremacy. Not 
only did they possess a superior fleet; they pos- 
sessed the chief supply of materials from which 
rival fleets could be built. Trafalgar gave England 
supremacy on the sea, not so much because she 
won the battle, as because her control of the 
sea prevented Napoleon from obtaining the ma- 
terials out of which alone he might rebuild his 
shattered fleet. This monopoly is gone forever. 
Ships are now built of a material of which no 
nation has a monopoly, and of which England 
does not even control one of the chief sources of 
supply. 

The peculiar strategical geography of northern 
Europe the Germans also hold responsible for 
England's power. The land on either side of the 
mouth of the Rhine is the key to northern Europe. 

22 



MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE 

Belgium controls the shortest route to Paris; 
Holland is the only point of departure from which 
an invasion of England is likely to be successful; 
both countries hold between them the door of the 
Rhine valley, the gateway to the heart of Ger- 
many. Their possession by any one of the three 
nations nearest them would give her immediately 
a most deadly offensive weapon against the other 
two. To possess them has been the dream of all; 
to secure them half the wars in European history 
have been fought. Those two tiny states are now 
independent because England, France, and Ger- 
many cannot permit each other to control them. 
To the east lies the gateway between France 
and Germany, Alsace-Lorraine, through whose 
fair fields pass the roads to Cologne and Berlin, 
to Frankfort, Leipzig, and Dresden, to Basel, 
Switzerland, and Italy, to the Danube valley and 
Vienna. Its possession permits France to enter 
the heart of Germany; its possession puts Ger- 
many at the very doors of France; it is a potent 
weapon of offense or defense and enables its holder 
to begin a war with tremendous advantages. For 
its possession, France and Germany have struggled 
for fifteen hundred years. The existence of these 
strategic points has made England important. 
If France assailed the Rhine from Lorraine, Ger- 
many would ally with England, who could assail 

23 



PAN-GERMANISM 

Paris from the north through Belgium. If Ger- 
many threatened France from the east, the Eng- 
lish might be induced to invade Germany from 
the Netherlands. Should either country obtain 
the cooperation of England against the other, the 
most disastrous results were probable. These 
conditions made England a factor in politics 
during the Middle Ages, out of all proportion to 
her actual strength as compared with France or 
Germany. She was in a position to deliver a deadly 
flank attack on either; the Channel effectually 
prevented retaliation; she could have consum- 
mated the dynastic ambitions of either; she pre- 
ferred to thwart the aims of both. When the 
Netherlands fell into Spanish hands in the six- 
teenth century and the power of the Hapsburgs 
threatened to absorb all Europe, the cooperation 
of the islanders, who controlled the stormy Chan- 
nel and who could so easily invade the Nether- 
lands, was seen by every one to be the controlling 
factor in a complex situation. Their assistance 
would almost certainly decide the war in favor 
of France or Spain. Not England's strength, but 
the fact that her position made her valuable to 
stronger nations, gave her a voice in the days of 
Henry VIII and Elizabeth. Not her strength, 
but the evenness of the balance of power in 
Europe, the rivalry of Bourbon and Hapsburg, 

S4 



MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE 

their fear of each other, gave her the casting 
vote.^ 

Until the nineteenth century, France was the 
only strong, organic nation on the continent of 
Europe: Spain, Italy, and Germany were geo- 
graphical expressions, whose weakness and fear of 
France forced them to call on England for aid. 
No doubt immense significance ought to be at- 
tached to England's own condition during these 
same centuries. She attained in the days of 
William the Norman, in the eleventh century, 
a territorial unity which Spain did not attain 
until the fifteenth century, France until the six- 
teenth century, Germany and Italy until the 
nineteenth century. Her strong centralized mon- 
archy, certainly the most powerful feudal govern- 
ment in Europe, the strong Tudor monarchy in 
later years were able to throw into the European 
balance the whole force of a territorial and eco- 
nomic unit. England, united and ruled by a single 
king, easily able to suppress local uprisings, was 

* "England has always caused one Power to destroy another 
Power. Herein lies England's profit." " The great Wars of Religion 
in Germany made it possible for England to become a sea power. 
During the time when Germany was torn and enfeebled, England 
could destroy the Hanseatic League. Prussia's Seven Years' War 
enabled England to oust the old Colonial Powers and to seize French 
Canada. . . . The final conquest of the New World succeeded only 
because Frederick the Great held down France in Europe." Eng- 
land's Weltherrschaft und die Deutsche Luxusflotte, von Lookout. 
Berlin, February, 1912. Fourteen editions were sold in a few weeks. 

25 



PAN-GERMANISM 

actually stronger than a vastly more populous 
and wealthy state, like France, Germany, or 
Spain, whose international strength was limited 
to such force as could be exerted by that one of her 
princes who had been able to secure the ascen- 
dency for the time being, and who was invariably 
hard pressed at home by ambitious rivals scarcely 
less powerful than he. The strategical position 
of the continental nations laid them open to inva- 
sion from so many quarters that they must be 
continually withholding from their offensive army 
in one place enough men to insure safety in others. 
Not so England, whom the Channel enabled to 
concentrate her forces at one point without fear 
of invasion elsewhere. England fought with her 
whole strength those who had not yet finished 
fighting among themselves. The number of years 
during which England has been the scene of actual 
warfare are astonishingly few. Since the days of 
Henry VIII, there has been domestic peace except 
for the civil wars of the seventeenth century. 
Such a record no other nation can show. Nor were 
the wars which did take place on English soil 
as disastrous or destructive as the wars on the 
Continent. When the Continent was almost laid 
waste, England could husband or utilize her full 
economic strength at will. Not alone, therefore, 
because of her position and the rivalries of others 

S6 



MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE 

has England played the controUmg part in inter- 
national affairs. Compared to any individual 
nation, her strength has been great. 

The growth during the nineteenth century of 
Prussia, Austria, and Italy has given England as 
rivals, in place of the old decentralized, inefficient, 
quarreling federations of tiny states, strong cen- 
tralized governments, larger than she in area, with 
more numerous populations, with greater re- 
sources. She has lost her old position, despite the 
fact that she was never more prosperous or better 
governed than she is at present, because of the 
proportionately more rapid development of her 
rivals. Nor can she longer claim a more efficient 
use of her resources than they. For a strong king, 
has been substituted a ministry; for the rapidity, 
vigor, and secrecy of the king's unhampered dis- 
cretion, has been substituted the less rapid and effi- 
cient direction of a many-headed executive whose 
actions are hampered and hindered by the House 
of Commons. However admirable the results 
of parliamentary government have been for the 
individual Englishman, it can scarcely be denied 
that the new democratic government is compara- 
tively less efficient than the old centralized mon- 
archy, and that, from the international point of 
view, England has lost inmiensely in offensive 
strength. 

27 



PAN-GERMANISM 

In the Government, too, exist the gravest dis- 
sensions. The assumption has always been that 
there would be a clear majority in the House of 
Commons in favor of one of two policies; that the 
Ministry would represent this majority, and from 
its unity and strength would derive support for 
the exercise of the discretionary authority neces- 
sary for all emergencies. Yet, for twenty years, 
the English parties in the House of Commons 
have both remained almost constant in size, and 
the decision has usually rested with the Irish and 
labor members, who have entertained views highly 
inconsistent with policy as the great majority of 
the English people have conceived it. And these 
two parties, thus fortuitously placed in so com- 
manding a position, have more than once given 
clear expression to their determination to use 
the exigencies of the occasion to extort from the 
reluctant English the consent necessary for the 
attainment of their own aims. In fact, it is not 
Ireland but England that needs home rule. The 
constitutional development of the nineteenth 
century has, for the time being, made difficult the 
efficient use of English resources. Lord Esher 
recently gave public expression to the opinion 
that the difficulty of coordinating the offensive 
and defensive forces of the nation made imprac- 
ticable the adoption by the military authoritiesjn 

28 



MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE 

England "of a plan, Napoleonic in scope and de- 
sign, and resting upon a centralized basis." 

During these same decades, precisely the op- 
posite type of development has taken place in 
Europe. The decentralized administration, which 
so long rendered impotent the great resources of 
Germany, Austria, and Italy in men and money, 
was replaced in each country by a centralized 
monarchy whose eflSciency made the prompt 
utilization of every resource a certainty. Where 
in England the direction of policy passed from 
the hands of a few into the hands of many, in 
Germany, Austria, and Italy it passed, from the 
hands of many princes, with various antagonistic 
aims, into the hands of a few men whose ideas 
were essentially the same. The fact that such 
development could not be foreseen does not alter 
its significance. England no longer possesses as 
much strength as she used to have; relatively to 
her rivals, she has suffered even more seriously, 
for while she has gone backward, they have gone 
forward. Compared to what she used to be, she is 
actually administratively weaker; compared with 
her rivals, she is relatively not twice but four 
times less strong than she used to be. 

Her "control of the sea" has also been vitally 
changed by the development of Europe during the 
last three centuries. The offensive power of the 

29 



PAN-GERMANISM 

English fleet naturally must depend upon the pos- 
sibility of injuring the enemy either by the de- 
struction of his warships or by the cutting of lines 
of communication vital to his commerce. In the 
old days, the absence of good roads compelled the 
transportation of bulky goods by water, and the 
extent of the facilities for water communication 
was the measure of the size of that country's trade. 
In northern Europe, merchandise necessarily 
traveled down a series of parallel rivers into the 
English Channel, the North Sea, and the Baltic, 
through which it proceeded to its destination. 
Goods could be shipped from Cologne to Ham- 
burg only through the Channel and the North 
Sea. Most of the internal trade between different 
parts of Germany or France was thus exposed in 
transit to the operations of the English fleet. All 
commerce by sea between northern Europe and 
the Mediterranean or the East was forced to go 
through the English Channel, exposed to the 
English fleet and the Channel weather.^ But the 

^ "On every one'of the world's trade routes, like an ancient robber 
knight in full armor, lance in hand, stands England. All nations 
must run the gauntlet of England. . . . The domination of the 
world on the sea enables the supreme naval Power to inflict the most 
terrible crises upon other nations. Every nation must combat this 
predominance for the sake of its future. . . . All nations have be- 
come tributary to the city of London, some more, some less. Ger- 
many would find existence at England's sufferance unbearable." 
England's Weltherrschqft und die Deutsche LuxusfloUe. 

SO 



MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE 

coming of the railway in the nineteenth century 
destroyed for all time this phase of England's sea 
power. The internal trade of Germany, and, in- 
deed, much of her international trade, goes over- 
land by rail and is thus entirely freed from the 
menace of English assault. Even with the Far 
East, trade is possible by rail, and the coming 
decade will undoubtedly see a further develop- 
ment of transcontinental trunk lines. The import- 
ance, therefore, of the Channel as the chief means 
of intercommunication in northern Europe has 
disappeared, and with it has gone England's 
control of the trade of northern Europe. 

Further, England's prosperity in the eighteenth 
and nineteenth centuries was due in no small de- 
gree to her control of the chief or only supplies of 
sugar, tobacco, tea, coffee, cotton goods, and all 
those varied products supplied by the East and 
West Indies. For those the Continent depended 
upon her, as Napoleon discovered when the 
imposition of the Continental System excluded 
English goods from the European market. The 
men actually seemed to resent far more the loss of 
their tobacco, and the women the deprivation of 
their tea, than they had the destruction of the 
political units to which they had formerly owed 
allegiance. The Continental System failed to 
bankrupt England because Europe absolutely 

SI 



PAN-GERMANISM 

refused to do without English goods. Another trade 
monopoly, far more fundamental, was due to 
England's industrial revolution of the eighteenth 
century. The smelting of iron with coal, the blast, 
furnace, the steam hammer revolutionized the 
working of metals; the new spinning and weaving 
machinery, the stationary steam engine and the 
factory revolutionized all industry; the breeding 
of cattle, the use of the turnip, of manure, and of 
selected seeds revolutionized agriculture. Such 
significant economic changes had not been seen 
since man began to record his own doings. For 
more than a generation, England enjoyed the 
exclusive monopoly of these processes and the 
consequent benefits. English goods commanded 
higher prices because they were more uniform; 
English profits were again larger than European 
to the extent that machinery was cheaper than 
the old hand processes. England was, therefore, 
economically doubly more powerful than any 
other nation in Europe, because she alone con- 
trolled the supply of commodities which Europe 
insisted upon having, and because she alone pos- 
sessed the secret of the improved processes. But 
her advantage in these respects has disappeared. 
Sugar cane from Louisiana and Hawaii, Ameri- 
can cotton, Brazilian cojffee, and the complete 
utilization by her chief rivals of all modern inven- 

32 



MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE 

tions has robbed her of the unique economic posi- 
tion she held in 1815. 

In fact, to the German, England's economic 
strength has been changed into fatal economic 
weakness. She no longer produces sufficient food 
to supply her population for a month; her supplies 
of coal and wood are diminishing at a rate which 
causes serious reflection; the raw material needed 
to supply her looms and factories she does not pro- 
duce; the raw material to build or maintain a fleet 
she cannot produce.^ The area of land under cul- 
tivation has steadily diminished. Population on 
the soil is decreasing at a more rapid rate and is 
drifting into the cities, where it further compli- 
cates the serious economic and administrative 
problems which worry her rulers. Every family 
moved from the land into the factory means so 
many less individuals who supply themselves with 
the necessities of life, so many more dependent 
upon the perfect operation of a complicated eco- 
nomic machinery for feeding them. Suppose now 
that the German fleet could secure control of the 
Channel for a brief time only, would not England 

* "Were it possible to cut off Great Britain's supply of food, in less 
than six weeks the inhabitants would die of starvation. Britons are 
fully aware of the danger, and all, from the noble lord to the laborer, 
are convinced that it is the most important duty of the State to keep 
open and secure the broad highway of the ocean." Die Flotte als 
notwendige Ergdnzung unserer naiionalen Wehrmacht, by A. Schroder, 
a book written for the Gennan secondary schools. 

33 



PAN-GERMANISM 

be starved into submission, would not her looms 
soon stop from the lack of material to feed them, 
would not her whole artisan class be thrown out of 
work, would not she be bankrupted as a nation in 
the most fundamental fashion by the simple loss 
of the control of the sea? Once the English fleet 
were beaten, could she ever obtain material with 
which to rebuild it, as long as the German fleet 
existed? Disaster on the sea would infallibly mean 
for England economic destruction at the hands of 
elemental foes far more potent than armies. And 
it would be irretrievable! Each decade, moreover, 
brings it nearer and nearer, by diminishing the 
number of mouths that feed themselves and in- 
creasing the number to be fed by the fleet; nearly 
every year shortens the length of time which the 
Germans must control the Channel in order liter- 
ally to destroy England by means of the economic 
weapons which control of the Channel would en- 
able them to wield. 

Furthermore, the Germans believe that so 
many years of peace, otherwise so fruitful of 
advantages, have produced the most serious re- 
sults upon the temper of the people. They are no 
longer warlike. They are unwilling to bear the 
burdens of taxation which the preparation for 
a great war renders inevitable. The spreading 
among them of humanitarian notions has actually 

34 



MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE 

deprived them of morale, rendered them supine, 
and apt material for conquest.^ Not only has Eng- 
land no army worth considering, but she has not 
the human stuff out of which great armies are 
made, for her people are not as a whole willing 
to cooperate in the creation of the only sort of 
army of any avail in moderrf warfare. In fact, the 
German notion of England is not so seriously 
exaggerated by such words as these: "Look at 
England — fat and fifty, overfed, short of breath, 
thickening in girth, deepening in brain. . . . Eng- 
land, entering upon her inevitable period of physi- 
cal decadence, boasting of conquests, like a middle- 
aged man with rheum in his eye, the clog of senility 
under his waistcoat, stiffness in his joints, and the 
red lights of apoplexy bright upon his throat — 
who throws out his chest among his sons and 
pants that he is * better than ever, e'gad!' Eng- 
land, sensuous in the home, crowding her homes 
like a squirrers nest in the frosts; an animated 
stomach, already cultivating and condimenting 
her fitful but necessary appetites ; wise and crafty 
in the world, but purblind to her own perversions 

* "During many decades Gennan university professors, school- 
masters, and publicists have taught the doctrine that Englishmen 
were too selfish and too cowardly to defend their country, and that 
England, like Carthage, was bound to fall through the lack of patri- 
otism among the people and their reliance upon hired soldiers." 
Fortnightly Review, xci, New Series, 456. 

35 



PAN-GERMANISM 

and lying in the rot of them — England, who will 
not put away boyish things and look to God. . . . 
She is draining India as Rome drained Gaul, as 
Spain drained Mexico, and accelerating the bes- 
tiality that spells ruin — with the spoils." 



CHAPTER III 

THE FATAL WEAKNESS OF IMPERIAL ENGLAND 

TO the German, the grandeur and splendor of 
Imperial England which has so long been 
impressed upon the world is nothing but bluster 
and show, masking congenital weakness of the 
most serious description. Some have not scrupled 
to say that Imperial England is nothing but a 
trading monopoly, a chain of forts, a great fleet, 
and a monumental impudence. That the English 
won their empire by force of arms, the Germans 
deny. It is hardly likely that a few thousand men, 
even headed by a beardless clerk who turned out 
to be a genius, could conquer by strength or craft 
the teeming millions of Hindus. Miracles are no 
longer common, and such miracles as fill the 
annals of the history of the building of the Eng- 
lish Empire, as told by Englishmen, have never 
happened. The Empire is not a reality; it is a 
sham. 

The Germans quote with satisfaction such state- 
ments regarding the position of the English in 
India as Lord Curzon's remark that the English 
are only a bit of froth upon an unfathomable 

37 



PAN-GERMANISM 

ocean. That, they deem to be no mere rhetorical 
flourish, as the English believe it to be, but the 
bare statement of the literal truth regarding the 
strength of the English hold on India. Really, the 
English never have conquered India. The Hindus, 
with the assistance of the English, conquered each 
other. Had it not been for the existence in India of 
many races, many languages, many religions, and 
those multitudinous jealousies and antipathies 
which grew out of them and filled the annals of 
that unhappy country with a record of discord 
and treachery, the English would not even be at 
this moment the froth tossing on that restless sea. 
They continue to rule by reason of those same 
factors which lay at the bottom of their so-called 
conquest and which make unity of the native 
races impossible. The Germans, nevertheless, do 
not fail to appraise at its true value the skill and 
tact which they have displayed in utilizing these 
factors. Knowing that physical force of their own 
could never maintain their authority or impose 
upon th:4f really powerful native rulers regulations 
not to their liking, they have taken the greatest 
care to do what the Hindus would permit, rather 
than what they themselves felt to be desirable. 
A single native state — the only alternative to 
united rule by the English — has always been 
impossible of realization because of the variety 

38 



THE FATAL WEAKNESS OF ENGLAND 

of races forced by the exigencies of the past to 
dwell together in the great plains of the Himalayas. 
In fact, the English have succeeded to that shad- 
owy authority known in the olden time as the 
Sovereignty of the Emperor, and have correctly 
interpreted it to confer upon them the right of 
direction, of suggestion, of assistance, not of con- 
trol. Undoubtedly they have helped the Hindu 
rulers by the businesslike administration of their 
estates; by showing them better methods of col- 
lecting the taxes, of utilizing their revenues, of 
administering justice. The condition of the peas- 
ants has been vastly improved, and has not, as the 
rajahs feared, reduced their authority or dimin- 
ished the loyalty of their subjects. But could not 
Germans also do as much? Do the English give 
the Hindu anything which the Germans could not 
give as well.^^ Have the English ever earned the 
enduring gratitude of the Hindu? 

,The English power in India has to no small 
degree depended, the Germans think, upon that 
obvious fact that they have had no competitors 
for the exercise of their overlordship in India since 
the middle of the eighteenth century. Their su- 
premacy on the sea, which rested upon their con- 
trol of the Channel, upon their wonderful seaman- 
ship, upon their practical monopoly of the naval 
stores in the Baltic, enabled them to keep far from 

39 



PAN-GERMANISM 

India any possible European rival. The whole of 
the Atlantic and Indian Oceans lay between India 
and any nation who wished to challenge England's 
rights there. Furthermore, there was no overland 
route to India sufficiently practical for military 
purposes, nor was there in Europe any nation ex- 
cept France strong enough and sufficiently well 
organized to undertake so colossal a feat as the 
invasion of India. In fact, the English have re- 
mained in India, as they say, supreme for a cen- 
tury and a half, solely because they have pre- 
vented the natives from uniting against them, and 
have yet to defend themselves from a determined 
assault from without. Now that the old suprem- 
acy on the sea is vitally altered in character, that 
the strategical position of the Channel and the 
monopoly of the naval stores have disappeared, 
that the Baghdad Railroad is nearly finished, that 
a Russian railroad is within striking distance of 
Herat, the isolation of India has practically van- 
ished. A very little force from without, a little 
discord within, and the waves will swallow up that 
bit of froth. 

In the Mediterranean the English Empire has 
rested upon similar forces. The native races were 
at odds with themselves and with each other; the 
other Mediterranean powers were weak or hope- 
lessly divided, and were unable to create in the 

40 



THE FATAL WEAKNESS OF ENGLAND 

Mediterranean a fleet to cope with England with- 
out first bringing their materials through the 
Channel which she controlled. These conditions 
have so vitally changed that the rule of the Eng- 
lish in Egypt can now, say the Germans, scarcely 
be considered as more than a transient phase in 
the long line of Egyptian administrative failures. 
For some decades England practically controlled 
Greece, Turkey, and the Balkans, exercising a 
very intangible and shadowy suzerainty exceed- 
ingly difficult to define, without effective powers 
for controlling or directing, to say nothing of utiliz- 
ing, the resources of those countries. England pos- 
sessed whatever degree of authority she had, not 
for administrative reasons of significance or value 
to the countries themselves, but to keep other 
nations at a distance. Turkey was not so much to 
obey England's behests as to frustrate Russia's 
designs. The same factors which have elsewhere 
sapped the peculiar structure of the English Em- 
pire have here also performed deadly work. There 
are now other strong powers possessed of fleets in 
the Mediterranean, able to equip and maintain 
them from their own resources, and possessed of 
the will to contest the control of the Mediterra- 
nean with her. 

The long list of strategic points in England's 
hands does not frighten the Germans. It is little 

41 



PAN-GERMANISM 

to them that England holds the Mediterranean, 
the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and controls the 
passageway between the Indian Ocean and the 
Yellow Sea, Magellan Strait, the Cape of Good 
Hope, and the most advantageous coaling-sta- 
tions on all these routes. Such a chain of forts 
and islands would be useful as the bases for the 
action of a fleet of the old type, operating against 
similar fleets in a war between England, as she 
was, against her enemies, as they were. To pro- 
tect so long a chain, England must keep a "mask- 
ing fleet" at each threatened point. The work of 
science in creating steel ships, moved by steam, 
has compelled England to concentrate her fleet in 
the North Sea, has built up powerful rivals whose 
operations are not restricted by the considerations 
of a century ago, and has forced her to leave 
undefended all but a few points. It is doubtful 
whether England can be again defended at Tra- 
falgar, or India saved at Aboukir. Every chain is 
as strong as its weakest link, and the chain of 
English strategical positions seems to the Ger- 
mans certain to yield to an attack in force deliv- 
ered at any point. 

There can, furthermore, be no doubt that in all 
parts of the English Empire the old condition 
upon which England's rule of the native races 
depended, the supineness and inefficiency of 

42 



THE FATAL WEAKNESS OF ENGLAND 

native administration, has given way before the 
ambitions, of at least the educated natives, for 
autonomy. The democratic impulse which has so 
strongly manifested itself in Europe has also ap- 
peared in the Mediterranean and in the East. 
Already the Egyptian, the Persian, and the Hindu 
are dreaming of a new land from which foreigners 
shall be excluded, of a splendid nation composed 
solely of natives administering their own country 
in their own interests, paying tribute to no one, 
independent of all. English rule is hardly likely, 
the Germans think, to be permanent, even if the 
forces at present at work are allowed to develop 
in their normal way. The chief thing, in fact, which 
helped the English was the natives' lack of initia- 
tive and desire to rule themselves. The English 
undertook the burden of government which the 
native did not want. Now that the native is 
aroused by a sense of the possibilities of self-gov- 
ernment, and has come to believe himself capable 
of securing for himself the sort of administration 
the English have given him, he is hardly likely to 
acquiesce much longer in English rule. Would 
it not now be easy for a nation to secure from 
all England's subjects the exclusive right to 
trade with them in exchange for a little assist- 
ance in putting the government of their own 
country into their own hands, and for promises 

43 



PAN-GERMANISM 

to protect them in future from outside inter- 
ference ? 

While not the most apparent, the most vital 
weakness of the Empire lies in its own size. Eng- 
land in one way or another controls to some ex- 
tent territory in every quarter of the globe. There 
is scarcely a nation at whose doors there does 
not lie some valuable English dependency which 
she would be glad to have. The extent of the 
booty is the measure of England's enemies. There 
is too much to be divided, should she fall, for her 
to survive long, assert the Germans. The cupidity 
of too many nations is already aroused to make 
possible any adequate assistance in propping up 
the frail and worthless fabric. Where literally the 
whole world has something to gain which England 
alone will lose, is it not likely that one defeat in 
any part of the world would so shake English pres- 
tige and so instantly reveal the rottenness of her 
imperial fabric as to cause a rush for the plunder 
similar to that which marked the downfall of the 
Napoleonic Empire in 1814 ? 

The bond between England and her self-govern- 
ing colonies is even weaker, say the Germans, and 
has infinitely fewer factors of fundamental import- 
ance to keep it in existence. Canada is separated 
from England by the width of the Atlantic; South 
Africa by the whole length of the Atlantic, a 

U 



THE FATAL WEAKNESS OF ENGLAND 

distance nearly equal to the length of the globe; 
Australia is more than twelve thousand miles 
from Liverpool; and these enormous distances 
effectively prevent these colonies from possessing 
an economic interest in common with the mother 
country. Nor is it probable that any strong inter- 
est could possibly be created. Despite the pro- 
gress of steam navigation, the voyage to them is 
still so long as to prevent any real cooperation in 
time of peace, or any effective assistance in time 
of war. There is no natural geographical basis for 
the British Empire. Such enormous tracts of land, 
so thinly populated, so far distant from each other, 
have nothing but the accident of their discovery 
and settlement by men of the same race to give 
them even that appearance of unity and common 
interest that they do possess. Unquestionably, 
the concentration of the English fleet in the 
North Sea and in the Mediterranean has deprived 
her colonies of the only thing they could have 
been expected to value. While it is not likely that 
any of them will require the services of a fleet to 
protect them from any enemies who would nor- 
mally attack them, England can certainly no 
longer promise them such protection. They pos- 
sess no privilege in England, or as a result of their 
connection with England, which the Germans 
themselves do not have. No trading privileges in 

45 



PAN-GERMANISM 

England, or with England, are theirs. If they were 
to declare their complete independence to-mor- 
row, nothing would be changed. Indeed, it is 
literally true, and the English themselves admit it, 
that the Empire has been held together in name 
during the last century by resolutely sacrificing 
its reality. 

Why should the colonies fight for the mainten- 
ance of an empire whose existence is not of benefit 
to them and whose destruction could not injure 
them.f^ How could they furnish England any 
effective assistance in a war fought in the North 
Sea, the Mediterranean, or the Near East? Even 
should they send troops or supplies so far, their 
population is not large enough nor theirjesources 
sufficient, think the Germans, and above all their 
military organization is not enough perfected, to 
make such support decisive for victory. Besides, 
Canada would expose herself to assault from the 
United States, a danger which the Germans seem 
to think sufficiently real to detain the Canadian 
regiments at home; Australia would be exposed to 
the Japanese, of whom the Germans think they 
stand in daily fear; in Africa, the English confed- 
eration is exposed to the much more real danger of 
an attack from German East or West Africa, and 
besides is sufficiently imperiled by the disparity 
in numbers between the whites and the natives. 

46 



THE FATAL WEAKNESS OF ENGLAND 

Indeed, it is conceivable that in Africa the English 
colonies would be in such danger from the out- 
break of a war with Germany that they would be 
compelled in self-defense to sever their connec- 
tion with the Empire. The loyalty of the colonies 
as a whole has been verbal, personal, a matter of 
sentiment, with which interests have never been 
allowed to clash. That it will stand the strain 
of real sacrifice, the Germans believe highly im- 
probable. 

The boasted millions of population, the count- 
less acres of territory, the stupendous wealth of 
the British Empire are real — but they are not 
England's. They belong to peoples more widely 
sundered in race, language, and interests than are 
the English and the Germans. Indeed, there are 
many vital facts common to the latter which the 
English colonies utterly lack, and which they can 
never possess. The English Empire has never 
been a reality, nor ever will be. Its weakness 
merely needs to be made apparent. 



CHAPTER IV 

FRANCE AND RUSSIA AS THE GERMAN SEES 

THEM 

ENGLAND, Germany hates, disdains, and de- 
spises. For France and Russia she possesses 
a wholesome respect mingled with fear, but not 
with love. France, she considers a strong man 
who has run his race and is now beginning to 
reach senility; Russia, she looks upon as an un- 
couth stripling not yet conscious of his strength, 
not yet skillful enough to use the strength of which 
he is conscious, and not yet intelligent enough to 
avoid being easily deceived. There are, perhaps, 
no more characteristic pages in Bismarck's me- 
moirs than those in which he discusses the com- 
parative ease of deceiving the English, French, 
and Russians. 

The strategic position of Germany renders her 
singularly open to attack from France and Rus- 
sia. The three nations occupy the vast plain slop- 
ing to the Atlantic Ocean and the Baltic from the 
crests of the Jura and the Alps, a great plain with 
no natural barriers separating, one from another, 
the different peoples who occupy it. There is no 

48 



GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA 

special reason for placing the German boundary 
at one spot rather than another; France has in- 
variably claimed the Rhine as her natural bound- 
ary; Russia looks upon the whole Baltic as her 
especial property of which she is most unfairly 
deprived. The ambitions of both nations are of 
vital import to Germany, for France can obtain 
her natural boundary, or Russia, in Peter the 
Great's expressive words, can open her windows 
only at Germany's expense. Certainly, there can 
be little doubt that the expansion of either France 
or Russia means economic and political death for 
Germany by depriving a large section of her ter- 
ritory of the control of the natural highways. 
There are, furthermore, no mountains, no deep 
rivers demarking the present lines between her 
and her neighbors. Her only fortifications are the 
regiments of the German army. At the same time, 
if Germany is open to attack, the door also stands 
open for her to assault her enemies. No natural 
barriers prevent her from annexing land either 
along the Rhine or in Poland. Her expansion in 
Europe, therefore, is possible, but it means, in- 
evitably, that she must take from her two power- 
ful neighbors or absorb the smaller nations, Bel- 
gium, Holland, and Denmark, whose existence 
her rivals regard as necessary to their own safety. 
Germany, fully realizing the seriousness of the 

49 



PAN-GERMANISM 

situation, at the same time confidently expects 
to turn it to her own advantage. It is perfectly 
true that she stands between France and Russia; 
but the central position, deadly to a weak nation, 
will afford so strong a nation as she an enviable 
opportunity for the offense. Her armies can sup- 
port each other without severing their communi- 
cations, can deliver an attack in force on either 
side with equal facility, while the most that her 
rivals can hope to do is to deliver a simultaneous 
attack from two sides. Actual cooperation be- 
tween them, the massing of forces at the same 
time, at the same spot, is so difficult as to be prac- 
tically impossible. 

Again, she already holds the most important 
ports on the Baltic, and by the cutting of the 
Kiel Canal through the Danish peninsula has 
robbed Denmark of much of her strategic im- 
portance and has united the Baltic with the At- 
lantic Ocean by a passageway which she exclu- 
sively controls. Could she now secure possession 
of Denmark, she would not only possess freedom 
of passage for herself, but she could close the 
Baltic to Russia and England. She already holds 
Alsace-Lorraine, and stands on the very borders 
of France with many strategic posts of the ut- 
most importance in her hands. On the northwest 
she impinges upon the French frontier at many 

50 



GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA 

points so near Paris that she is confident of an 
entry into the French capital a few days after the 
beginning of the campaign. The Russian fleet in 
the Baltic is not sufficiently powerful, she thinks, 
to be dangerous. The French fleet is not enough 
of a factor in the Atlantic to frighten her. She 
fears their armies, not their fleets. She does not 
underestimate the strength of their position, the 
size of their population, their wealth, or their 
patriotism. She does not believe them suffi- 
ciently well organized to utilize to the full their 
resources, and she is confident that nothing short 
of a complete utilization of every resource can 
make them really dangerous to her. 

The most vital weakness in France, say the 
Germans, is the Republic. French administra- 
tion, by the admission of French publicists them- 
selves, is inefficient, failing to secure the best men 
for office, failing to keep competent men in office, 
failing to keep out of vitally important offices 
ignorant and corrupt appointees. Democracy in 
France has not worked well. It has not failed, 
perhaps, to benefit the individual so much as it 
has to organize the State, which lacks the power 
of vigorous initiative, and which is incapable of 
the consistent policy absolutely indispensable to 
prepare the nation to meet a great crisis. Surely, 
the destruction of more than one first-class battle- 

51 



PAN-GERMANISM 

ship has proved with suflScient clearness the la- 
mentable deficiency of her naval administration. 
The Dreyfus case proved the organization of the 
army to be singularly open to a type of influence 
which would be only too likely to be fatal in time 
of war. Merit, and merit alone, can be in the long 
run the proper test in all military and adminis- 
trative appointments. It is in the selection of offi- 
cials that democracy has everywhere most con- 
spicuously failed. It could have scarcely failed 
in anything more vital to the protection of the 
State. 

France, too, is no longer united. The people 
are courageous, unquestionably loyal, filled with 
ambition, but they have been growing apart as 
steadily as the Germans have been growing to- 
gether. The German believes the forces hostile 
to the Republic were never stronger than at the 
present moment. The administration has recently 
succeeded in alienating the Royalists, the Church, 
and the Socialists; and their strength makes all 
three dangerous. Especially is this true in the 
difficulties raised by the quarrel with the Pope. 
The French have always been peculiarly devoted 
Catholics, and have more than once followed 
their Church rather than the State. The growth 
of Socialist, Syndicalist, and Anarchistic notions 
certainly augurs ill for the solidarity of the com- 

52 



GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA 

ing generation, or its loyalty to the Republic. 
A violent intestinal quarrel in France would cer- 
tainly rob her of most of her offensive power, if 
not of her defensive strength. The Germans be- 
lieve that the Republic has alienated large classes 
of the community, whose support will be far less 
warm in moments of danger than it would have 
been ten years ago. 

France is growing physically weaker each dec- 
ade. The birth rate has long been declining, and 
of late the number of births has shown not alone 
a proportional but an actual decrease. Emigra- 
tion does not account for this decrease in the total 
population, which becomes steadily more serious 
each year. The most alarming aspect of the situ- 
ation lies, however, in the very rapid increase of 
illegitimacy and juvenile crime. The Apaches of 
Paris were never so bold as now, and they and 
the juvenile criminals frankly declare their pre- 
ference for a life of crime with a frequency and 
abandon truly astonishing. It seems, therefore, 
as if the newer generation which is growing up in 
France is hardly likely to furnish strong, steady, 
capable men to take the place of the generations 
who are passing. 

Her colonial power, like England's, hangs by a 
thread. She has, indeed, but one valuable colony, 
northern Africa, where the Germans believe the 

53 



PAN-GERMANISM 

natives to be so clearly dissatisfied with her rule 
as to render its continuance highly problematical; 
her commercial monopoly in her colonies is purely 
political; and if freedom of trade were permitted, 
Germany could undersell her in her own field with- 
out the slightest difficulty. Her political control, 
therefore, being unstable, her commercial mono- 
poly depending upon it, the Germans do not con- 
sider it a matter of insuperable difficulty to filch 
from her the really valuable privilege of hold- 
ing Morocco at all. The excellence of Colonel 
Mangin's troops and his own skill and bravery 
the Germans do not underestimate, but they 
count upon the blunderers in Paris to upset all 
his dispositions. 

The extent of Russia's possessions, her enor- 
mous population, her astonishing growth in the 
last two centuries, the Germans fully appreciate. 
They well know that her population was twelve 
millions in 1700 and was one hundred and fifty 
millions in 1900; that her revenue of five million 
dollars in 1700 had become one billion dollars 
by 1900; that whereas she controlled in 1700 an 
area not much larger than Germany herself, she 
now controls one seventh of the land surface of the 
globe. Men and money she has lavishly spent in 
the ruthless pursuit of those same ambitions which 
she has to-day. To secure the Baltic cost Russia 

54 



GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA 

seven hundred thousand lives. Her territory on 
the Black Sea cost the same. In the eighteenth 
century she sent five million men into the field, 
and a similar number into the wars of the nine- 
teenth century, and did this with a population 
only a fraction of that she can now command. 
There is small chance that she will not exert the 
same proportional amount of effort in the coming 
century in the same ruthless pursuit of the same 
aims. Above all, the Germans know that nothing 
stands between them and these multitudes of 
men but their own army. 

They know at the same time that a nation's 
strength is not what she possesses, but what she 
can effectively use, and German diplomats are 
still of Bismarck's opinion that Russia's interna- 
tional value depends upon "a single pair of eyes," 
in other words, upon the Tsar himself. Russia, 
they claim, is too autocratic to be dangerous in 
proportion to her strength; the Tsar can make 
the alliance and with equal rapidity and ease be 
persuaded to break it; Russia's actions depend 
too entirely upon the personal opinion of her 
rulers and too commonly lack support in the 
opinion of the nation to make her a very valuable 
ally or a very dangerous enemy. The adminis- 
tration is overladen with red tape, nor can the 
confusion and inefficiency be lessened while her 

55 



PAN-GERMANISM 

rulers insist upon directing from St. Petersburg 
the details of administration in so enormous an 
empire. Russia, in other words, is so large that 
centralized government is inefficient. The hier- 
archy in St. Petersburg cannot, in the very nature 
of things, possess enough knowledge about the 
different localities they govern to direct their 
subordinates successfully; they are necessarily 
thrown upon the mercy of the subordinates them- 
selves, from whom they must, perforce, derive 
the great bulk of their information about condi- 
tions in the district, and the conduct of affairs. 
Such a government is necessarily blind, slow, cum- 
brous, hesitating, incapable of acting promptly, 
or of executing ably the details of a complex 
scheme of offense. 

The Russian people are, in the opinion of 
Germans, too numerous, too widely separated, to 
have a truly national consciousness obtained by 
common experience in thought and action, even 
were they all of the same race, and even if they 
were all enthusiastically in favor of the Govern- 
ment. The educated class in Russia is capable 
but small, and its numbers and character have 
both been vitally influenced by the policy of the 
Tsars in restricting education to non-political sub- 
jects. In order to limit the forces against them, 
in order to limit the possible leaders of the sub- 

5Q 



GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA 

ject nations, and the possible leaders of the Rus- 
sian people in the war upon the dynasty, they 
have systematically opposed the extension of 
education and training, and have thus conserved 
the dynasty at the price of a very real loss to the 
nation in vital strength. Underneath the nobles 
are the educated and the administrators, and 
underneath the somewhat larger merchant class 
is the great bulk of the people, of whom those 
who are not too miserable, ignorant, and down- 
trodden to have thoughts beyond existence itself, 
are mostly irreconcilables who hate the govern- 
ment with an energy almost beyond conception. 
Their numbers are considerable and include such 
vitally important districts as Finland and Poland, 
where Germany might easily receive important 
assistance by instigating a popular revolt. In- 
deed, Russia's power can never be more than 
potential until she has pacified and consolidated 
her own people. 

Financially, Russia is bankrupt, think the 
Germans, despite her enormous resources, for the 
revenues which succeed in reaching St. Peters- 
burg (certainly a fraction only of the taxes col- 
lected from the people) are for the most part 
pledged to the payment of the interest and cap- 
ital of the Japanese War loans. Certainly, it is 
widely believed that the money for another great 

57 



PAN-GERMANISM 

war could not be raised in Russia and would not 
be supplied by foreign capitalists without more 
securities than Russia has left to pledge. Where 
so enormous a proportion of the population still 
exists upon an essentially primitive type of agri- 
culture, where manufactures are as yet in their 
infancy, where the vast mineral resources are still 
largely undeveloped, the available resources 
within Russia herself for the prosecution of the 
war are really inconsiderable compared to her 
ostensible strength. 

The army the Germans do not consider dan- 
gerous. The Japanese showed clearly how easily 
the Russian generals could be outmanoeuvred, and 
how incapable the Russians were of holding even 
strong positions against a determined assault 
directed by real tacticians. The greatest difficul- 
ties which the Russian generals had to meet arose 
from the quality of the human material with 
which they had to deal. The men, and even the 
non-commissioned officers, only too often lacked 
sufficient intelligence to execute any movement 
requiring something more than obedience to the 
letter of the orders issued them. Blind courage, 
the capacity to suffer hunger and cold which 
would have caused the German army to mutiny, 
the dull qualities of the brute, these the Russian 
troops possessed; intelligence, discretion, capabil- 

58 



GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA 

ity, and initiative, all these, and more, vital to 
so complex an organization as the modern army, 
the rank and file did not possess at all. An army, 
insist the Germans, is not a machine composed 
of a certain number of parts, but an organization 
of men which must be intelligent to be effective. 
It is in the army, especially, that the inefficiency 
of Russian administration and the lack of intelli- 
gence in the rank and file of the Russian people 
produce the most striking results for evil. 

Russia's real destiny, the Germans believe, is 
in Asia, not in Europe. Her people are more 
closely allied to the Asiatic than to the European; 
her methods in government are those of the East, 
not of the West; her religion is Oriental, not 
Occidental. She is placed so as to command 
ready entrance into the very heart of China and 
India, where native administrations less efficient 
than hers rule a people still more ignorant. 
Sooner or later, Russia, think the Germans, will 
realize this and renounce her foolish ambitions 
in Europe. Needless to add, the Russians have 
not the slightest intention of doing anything of 
the kind. 

The existence of France and Russia, dangerous 
as it is to Germany, is not without its compensa- 
tions, for their positions bind to her firmly her 
allies, Austria and Italy, without whose help the 

59 



PAN-GERMANISM 

great scheme of Pan-Germanism would be im- 
possible of execution. To be sure, if France and 
Russia did not exist, the great scheme might not 
be necessary, but it is certainly fortunate that 
their existence makes simple the securing of aid. 
Austria, as well as Germany, lies in the path of 
Russian progress, not so much because of her 
territory in Austria proper as because of her own 
determination to expand into Poland and to reach 
the sea through the Adriatic and the iEgean. 
Austria, therefore, depends for the realization of 
her dynastic aims upon obtaining possession of 
the Balkans. If she should do so, the Russian 
plans for obtaining control of the Black Sea and 
for securing an exit into the Mediterranean 
through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles 
would become impossible of execution, for even 
if Austria permitted Russia to obtain Constan- 
tinople and the Straits, her own possession of 
Macedonia and the great port of Saloniki would 
effectively prevent Russia from controlling the 
JEgean. Austria, therefore, whose assistance Ger- 
many vitally needs in the North, equally needs 
the help of Germany to prevent Russia from tak- 
ing possession of the Balkans and thus ending 
for once and all her own hopes of expansion. The 
ambition of Russia makes Germany and Austria 
permanent allies. 

60 



GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA 

Italy, without fears of absorption by Russia and 
without vital fear of invasion from France, never- 
theless finds the assistance of Germany impera- 
tive for the realization of her own plans of expan- 
sion in the Mediterranean. It is obvious that to 
obtain colonies in Africa she must either take 
them with the consent of England and France, or 
fight the latter for them, a proceeding hardly 
possible in view of the preponderance of the Eng- 
lish and French fleets in the Mediterranean. 
Germany and Austria, therefore, can alone en- 
able her to obtain a position in the Mediterran- 
ean in the face of the opposition of France and 
England; Germany by her threats of attack upon 
the English fleet, Austria by actual assistance in 
the Mediterranean itself. In addition, Italy is 
well situated to assist Germany in her struggle 
against France by an attack upon the French rear 
through the passes of the Alps. She would also 
be in admirable position to fight Russia in 
the Balkans, should the latter succeed in pene- 
trating so far, while her navy would be of the 
utmost importance in the Mediterranean. In- 
deed, the position of Sicily, the great ports at 
Naples and Messina, would be of paramount 
importance in depriving Malta, the key of the 
English defense, of much of its strength; and from 
Genoa, the Austrian and Italian fleets might to- 

61 



PAN-GERMANISM 

gether easily contest with the French at Toulon 
the possession of the western Mediterranean, and 
the Italian fleet alone, mobilized at Genoa, might 
prevent the cooperation of the French and Eng- 
lish fleets by forcing the French to remain behind 
to protect their naval base. Should they sail, the 
Italian fleet could menace the rear, or might 
actually destroy Marseilles, if not Toulon. In 
short, if the Triple Alliance should ever propose 
to contest the supremacy of the Mediterranean 
with England and France, the cooperation of 
Italy would be indispensable. Austria and Italy 
could in all probability be depended upon to keep 
Russia and France occupied while Germany 
dealt with England. 



CHAPTER V 

THE STRENGTH OF IMPERIAL GERMANY 

WHILE well aware of the fact that the cen- 
tral position is, from a military point of 
view, one of weakness for a power compelled to 
defend herself, or not prepared to take the offen- 
sive, Germany is equally aware of the undeniable 
fact that the central position, for a power which 
proposes to take the aggressive, possesses enor- 
mous advantages. She can attack either France or 
Russia with equal ease; her army is equally ready 
to defend her against both at the same time, thus 
affording her the maximum opportunity for util- 
izing her men to advantage. In addition, she holds 
the great strategic points of northern Europe, — 
Alsace-Lorraine, the door to France; the Kiel 
Canal, giving her access to the Baltic without 
exposing herself to the necessity of utilizing the 
Sund; her allies hold the Swiss passes and the vital 
points affording passage into Russia and the Bal- 
kans. Everything vital to her, indeed, everything 
she owns, forms a compact territorial unit which 
can be defended by the minimum force with the 
maximum ease. She has no long chain of forts or 

63 



PAN-GERMANISM 

islands to guard, no great stretches of land in 
Africa or Asia to protect, no subject races to 
pacify like the Hindus or Moroccans. She con- 
siders, therefore, that her strategic position, far 
from possessing the weakness which her enemies 
believe it has, is one of such strength that it affords 
her advantages which might almost be called 
conclusive in the sort of a struggle in which she 
proposes to engage. She is not vulnerable to attack 
from a fleet; England's greatest offensive weapon 
is useless against her; for, while the English fleet 
could stop the passage of German commerce 
through the English Channel, it is powerless to 
undertake any offensive movements which could 
endanger her existence. Nor could it stop her 
trade overland, a trade already great in volume, 
steadily expanding, and which would, with the out- 
break of war and the consequent exclusion from 
Europe of English manufactured goods, attain 
unsuspected dimensions. Indeed, the outbreak 
of war might conceivably permit German mer- 
chants to take from the English their whole mar- 
ket on the Continent by the very simple fact that 
war would certainly close the harbors, while Ger- 
man goods could still cross the frontiers by rail. 
Such an eventuality the Germans consider some- 
thing more than a possibility. 

Germany, however, looks with greatest pride 

64 



THE STRENGTH OF IMPERIAL GERMANY 

at her economic strength. She feels that she occu- 
pies in the economic world a truly extraordinary 
position, as one of the few nations who are still 
literally self-sufficing, who can even feed and 
clothe themselves. When she compares her popu- 
lation with that of England and France, she de- 
rives solid satisfaction from the knowledge that, 
in an area equal in size to France, she has nearly 
fifty per cent more people, and in an area more 
than one third larger than England's, she has a 
population one fourth larger. The number of 
men on whom she can call for active service in 
time of war will be naturally to that extent 
greater than those at her rivals' disposal. She is, 
therefore, not surprised to find that her standing 
army, ready to go to the front at a moment's 
notice, is twice as large as the English army on 
paper and almost four times as large as the French. 
When she adds her reserve army, nearly equal 
in size and efficiency to her standing army, she 
wonders how England and France can seriously 
consider opposing her wishes, and looks upon the 
outcome of any possible conflict with supremest 
confidence. The density of her population is 301 
units as against England's 367, and France's 190; 
her revenue per capita is $10, while England's is 
$15, and France's is $20, proving the ease with 
which her people have borne and are bearing the 

65 



PAN-GERMANISM 

cost of a military and naval expansion unparalleled 
thus far in German history. It is, however, when 
she looks at her public debt and compares its 
size with that of her rivals, that she feels most 
conjfident of the outcome of war. Her public debt 
jper capita is something over $15, while England 
owes $80 per individual, and France carries the 
enormous burden of $150 per person. Germany, 
therefore, not only has more people and more 
acres, but has been able to accomplish vastly 
more with the imposition of much smaller burdens 
upon her population. Agriculture has reached a 
state of high perfection in Germany; manufac- 
tures have undoubtedly made great progress. 
Indeed, her great economic eJBBciency is clear from 
her success in competition with other nations in 
every field of industry; she has even beaten them 
in their own markets. The proof of the degree of 
her prosperity and the extent to which she is self- 
sufficing the Germans see in the fact that, while 
her exports per capita are $24, her imports are 
about $30, whereas England exports $40 per 
capita and imports $65.^ Germany, therefore, is, 
like England, a creditor nation, and is clearly 
producing far in excess of the ability of her people 

1 These figures are only approximate; no really accurate figures 
are possible because no definitive figure can be given for the popula- 
tion except in a census year. That figure, too, is always inaccurate 
by the time it has been compiled. 

66 



THE STRENGTH OF IMPERIAL GERMANY 

to consume. This economic efficiency rests upon 
the solid basis of the possession within her own 
borders of a fairly adequate supply of most raw 
materials required to keep her factories at work, 
and, what is perhaps more essential, of all those 
materials peculiarly necessary^ for the mainten- 
ance of an army and a fleet, not excepting the 
most essential of all, food and iron. Nor is she at 
the mercy of England, as most other nations are, 
from the lack of a merchant marine of her own to 
distribute her products to the rest of the world. 
While her merchant fleet is new and does not 
upon paper compare favorably, either in number 
of ships or in registered tonnage, with the English 
merchant marine, at the same time no one doubts 
that in actual efficiency it can seriously be com- 
pared with England's. 

Her vast resources Germany is prepared to util- 
ize to the full. Her government is admittedly one 
of the most efficient in the world. Her capable 
bureaucracy, her local government conducted 
purely on scientific and business principles, her 
centralized imperial administration, provide her 
with the most advantageous methods of accom- 
plishing the greatest results without wasting a 
man or a mark. The motto of German govern- 
ment has invariably been efficiency, the securing 
of the greatest results with the least expenditure of 

67 



PAN-GERMANISM 

energy. To be sure, this has involved an amount of 
interference with individual rights and privileges 
which has in some cases almost amounted to the 
ordering of the individual's life by the government, 
and which has been sneeringly called, by other 
nations, paternalism, less, as most Germans think, 
because other nations dislike the results than 
because they despair of obtaining them. The 
average German is supremely satisfied with his 
government, and is above all pleased with the 
results. He feels that only jealousy can cause 
others to criticize. 

The advantages of centralized government he 
feels to be great in times of peace, merely from 
the point of view of obtaining the most favorable 
results in internal administration. But the real 
benefits of centralized administration will be most 
apparent in time of war. Indeed, without such a 
centralized administration, the execution of any 
such gigantic scheme as Pan-Germanism, extend- 
ing necessarily over a long series of years and re- 
quiring continuity of policy and careful prepara- 
tions for eventualities known of necessity only to 
a few, would be utterly impossible. In England 
and in France, power is distributed in too many 
hands to make continuity of policy and vigor 
of administration really possible; in Russia, the 
country itself is too large to be directed eflSciently 

68 



THE STRENGTH OF IMPERIAL GERMANY 

by a single head; in Germany, the happy mean is 
found. The certainty, therefore, of the complete 
utilization of every ounce of the national strength 
in the struggle approaching, with nations whose 
governments are not able to utilize the whole of 
their strength, makes the Germans supremely 
confident of success. They are certain that they 
are stronger than England under any circum- 
stances; they are sure that their resources are 
considerable enough to cope with France and 
Russia combined; and they believe that they are 
stronger than all three nations in the amount of 
force which they are capable of actually exerting. 
The efficiency of administration; the possibility 
and necessity of continuity of policy, is most ap- 
parent in the rapidity with which the Germans 
have developed their army and navy to the present 
point of high efficiency and size. They realize, 
certainly to a degree no other nation does, the 
extent of the preparation necessary for participa- 
tion in modern warfare, and the number of years 
of preparation indispensable to success. War, 
indeed, is too terrible to be invoked without the 
certainty of success, especially by a nation stra- 
tegically situated, as Germany is, between two 
enemies thirsting for her destruction. The Ger- 
mans realize that a successful war must be prose- 
cuted by a highly organized machine, equipped 

69 



PAN-GERMANISM 

with exceedingly expensive apparatus, officered 
by men whose training must necessarily consume 
years, during which they and the troops they are 
instructing must be supported by the State and 
allowed to devote their whole time to learning the 
game of war. The Germans learned long ago that 
a citizen army drawn from farms and counting- 
houses at the outbreak of war cannot be expected 
to understand manoeuvring. It is a difficult thing 
for a hundred men to do something together; 
it is a much more difficult thing for a hundred 
thousand men to manoeuvre without getting in 
each other's way; but when a million men are to 
be transported to a certain spot, equipped, offi- 
cered, fed, and expected to execute a complicated 
attack with efficiency and dispatch, nothing short 
of a most complicated organization can even put 
such an army into a field, and nothing short of 
years of practice can possibly make it efficient. 
On the other hand, the Germans realize that 
a weapon of this sort is not to be successfully re- 
sisted by anything less highly trained. To-day an 
army to repel an invader can no longer be garnered 
from the countryside as the invader advances, 
armed with weapons taken from the wall of each 
man's house, officered by the nobility and gentry, 
and by them hastily organized into companies. 
The same elaborate preparations which were 

70 



THE STRENGTH OF IMPERIAL GERMANY 

essential to its undertaking will be required to 
meet invasion. War is also expensive, not alone 
because of the length of time the men must be 
in training, but because the apparatus which they 
must learn to use is expensive to create and ex- 
pensive to practice with. A gun crew, that is to 
be called upon in time of danger to hit a moving 
mark at the distance of several miles, a mark 
invariably out of sight, must have had consider- 
able practice in time of peace to be able to hit any- 
thing in the excitement of battle. The expense 
of firing a twelve-inch rifle is in the neighborhood 
of a thousand dollars, and gun crews usually are 
instructed to see how many times they can fire 
the gun in so many minutes. Preparedness for war 
at this rate means that the nation must pay for it 
gradually, which means in turn that the money 
must be spent over a long series of years. The 
Germans are certain that no other nation in 
Europe has spent the same amount of money or 
exercised the same amount of forethought or pos- 
sessed the same degree of belief in the necessity 
for preparation that they have. Why, then, doubt 
of success? In fact, the preparedness for war bears 
to-day so inevitable and obvious a relation to the 
result of the combat that actual fighting is likely 
to occur only between forces that are apparently 
equal in size and efficiency. The Germans hope 

71 



PAN-GERMANISM 

to make their army so large and so competent 
that it can decide contests without appearing in 
the field. 

Germany's greatest strength, however, lies, as 
her rulers think, in the hearty cooperation of the 
German people in the great scheme. They seem 
all to be willing to sacrifice and suffer whatever 
may be necessary for the realization of the great 
vision which has already enthused the nation for 
so many years. The government will be able to 
count on the active, willing cooperation of the 
whole people in the prosecution of any plans 
which may be deemed necessary for the prepara- 
tion or the execution of this project. The Social- 
ists, despite their hostile theories and speeches, 
have pledged themselves to play their part like 
men when "the day" dawns. Indeed, the very 
things which make expansion necessary for Ger- 
many's future are those things which will be her 
greatest assets in promoting the war and the most 
certain gauges of her success. Her rapidly grow- 
ing population, her busy factories, the swelling 
volume of product, these are the very tools with 
which Pan-Germanism is to be built. They are 
the pledges fortune has given Germany of its 
realization; their existence furnishes Germans 
with all necessary proof of the expediency and 
morality of the course they have adopted. 



CHAPTER VI 

ENGLAND AND FRANCE AS THEY SEE 
THEMSELVES 

WHILE it is hardly expedient to interrupt 
the exposition of Pan-Germanism in order 
to interject a complete consideration of the factors 
upon which England and France are depending 
for their own salvation, it is indispensable to make 
clear at this point some facts of their national 
development which give them confidence, and, 
above all, to describe in detail their economic 
position, for it is upon what they consider to be 
the elements of its greatest strength that Germany 
is counting to compass their downfall. In their 
own eyes, England and France have had a truly 
glorious past. They have been for at least three 
centuries the leading nations of Europe, France 
being the model during the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries for language, literature, 
fashions, to say nothing of administration; Eng- 
land becoming in the nineteenth century the 
model upon which the rest of the world diligently 
strove to form itself. The Napoleonic Adminis- 
tration and the Napoleonic Code have had an 

73 



/■' 



PAN-GERMANISM 

extensive influence, say the French, in the forma- 
tion of modern Germany; the English point out 
that the centralized government of which Ger- 
mans are so proud is, after all, nothing but an 
adaptation of the English parliamentary system. 
France feels that but for her support the Catholic 
Church would hardly be what it is in Europe 
to-day; the English are more than positive that 
their support alone kept Protestantism alive. 
In science and literature they consider themselves 
not less preeminent. Surely, say the English, the 
doctrine of evolution is the most significant ele- 
ment in modern thought and the most purely Eng- 
lish; truly, say the French, Voltaire, Rousseau, 
and the Encyclopaedists directed the thought of 
the world into new channels which it has not yet 
found inadequate. The industrial revolution, the 
new agriculture, the factory system, trade-union- 
ism were all begun in England. If Germany is 
great, her greatness rests upon foundations laid by 
England and France. They ask the Germans to 
point out one conspicuous achievement in which 
they have not at least shared. Nor do they fail 
to derive comfort and satisfaction from the con- 
templation of the extension of their policy in the 
modern world. England controls one fifth of the 
total land area of the globe, one fifth of its total 
population; half of North America, a quarter of 

74 



ENGLAND AND FRANCE 

Asia, and nearly half of Africa are under her flag; 
while France may point with pride at the posses- 
sion of a dominion in Africa, vast in extent and 
rich in resources. Certainly, there are no two 
nations in the world which control so large a share 
of its surface, its population, or its resources. 
Compared to what they hold, the Steppes of 
Russia and the vast frozen dominion of Siberia 
are valueless. In addition, the whole world gov- 
erns itself on the English model; the whole world 
wears French clothes; the only two languages 
which have any claims to universal use, since 
Latin ceased to be the language of the learned, 
are French and English. Even if they should 
grant the truth of every statement made in pur- 
suance of German greed as to their strength and 
position, these great cardinal facts must make it 
evident, they feel, that the German argument 
possesses some flaw which will not be less fatal 
because it is not obvious. 

England and France feel, however, that, even 
if they were politically and strategically as weak 
as Germany believes them to be, they have still a 
tower of strength in their economic supremacy, 
based upon natural advantages whose potency 
cannot be denied. The conspicuous features of re- 
cent economic growth have been the interdepend- 
ence of nations, the extension of the credit sys- 

75 



PAN-GERMANISM 

tern, of international trade, and the rise of such 
huge aggregates of capital as the Rothschild for- 
tune. The growth of the nineteenth century has 
made commercial development depend on the 
production of something which others need, which 
one nation makes better than others or produces 
more easily, and which that nation can exchange 
for those products naturally and easily produced 
by others. The old ideal of a people entirely self- 
sufficing has disappeared, not because it was bad 
in its effects upon the people, but simply because 
it has become clear that no single people can pro- 
fitably devote their time to producing everything 
they need. The economic interdependence of the 
world has progressed with such rapid strides 
because it has proved more profitable to all na- 
tions than the earlier system. The truly progres- 
sive nation to-day will, therefore, not expect to 
be self-sufficing, and will abandon the industries 
in which it is not specially fitted to surpass by 
natural conditions or by its skill. 

The credit system of international exchange, 
by which vast transactions are accomplished with- 
out the passing from hand to hand of even tokens 
of value, has entirely altered the methods of 
transacting the world's business and has in- 
creased the extent and profitableness of this inter- 
dependence. Moreover, out of the factory sys- 

76 



ENGLAND AND FRANCE 

tern and modem industry have grown huge aggre- 
gations of capital, available for immediate use 
and controlled by comparatively few men. There 
are individuals in the world to-day who them- 
selves control revenues greater than those of 
many nations, whose incomes annually at their 
disposal are as large as most of the fortunes of 
antiquity. They thus may wield stupendous 
power in the development of nations. Indeed, 
modem business depends upon the possibility of 
utilizing such enormous aggregations of capital 
for the promotion of smgle enterprises. The 
English and the French make no idle boast when 
they claim that the modem economic stmcture, 
national as well as intemational, has been largely 
their creation and is now largely in their hands. 
Of certain staple materials, like wool, fur, fish, 
they practically possess a monopoly; in London 
and Paris are the centres of the world's exchange 
and credit system; to London and Paris bankers 
accme the profits of handling the world's business. 
Nothing short of a financial panic of the first 
magnitude, accompanied perhaps by the disloca- 
tion of all business traditions, can fail to result, 
they think, from the disarranging of these disposi- 
tions. The English yearly produce an enormous 
bulk of manufactured goods which has steadily . 
increased in volume at the rate of from ten to 

77 



PAN-GERMANISM 

twenty per cent each decade. England is stead- 
ily growing richer and not poorer, as the Germans 
insinuate. The French monopoly on such luxu- 
ries as jewelry, dress goods, and most articles of 
personal apparel is as complete to-day as it ever 
was. The world's carrying trade is practically in 
English hands and its profits are no small share 
of the English national wealth. Any one who 
supposes that the English merchant marine could 
be annihilated without dislocating the commerce 
of the world is either exceedingly misinformed or 
intentionally blind. London and Paris are, fur- 
thermore, the distributing centre for Eastern and 
African goods, for which the demand was never 
greater than it is at present. How is it possible, 
say the English and the French, for the world to 
get along without us? Is it in any degree cred- 
ible that Germany can take our place, can rear- 
range the whole financial and commercial struc- 
ture of the world, without causing an amount of 
suffering to herself which would more than coun- 
terbalance any possible benefits she might receive ? 
Indeed, the English and the French are not alto- 
gether unreasonable in supposing themselves at 
present indispensable to the economic welfare of 
the world. 

The interdependence of the world, moreover, 
which is so profitable to every one concerned, is 

78 



ENGLAND AND FRANCE 

absolutely contingent upon the continuance of 
peace. Every one will be injured by the inability 
to exchange what they produce for what they 
need. Anything like a general war will necessarily 
entail financial loss, and not improbably personal 
suffering, upon the individuals of practically 
every community in the world. It is, therefore, 
the peace advocates strenuously insist, to prac- 
tically every one's economic advantage to main- 
tain peace. The number of mdividuals, to say 
nothing of nations, who would be likely to gain 
by the outbreak of war are too few to be regarded, 
and consist, they claim, chiefly of those who 
make the materials or the weapons needed by 
armies and navies. These facts, indeed, are suf- 
ficiently apparent to furnish a solid basis for great 
organized movements in favor of international 
arbitration or conciliation, whose propaganda is 
so active, and whose logic and statistics are so 
unassailable, as to have convinced the great ma- 
jority of every-day people in all nations of the in- 
expediency of war. Unquestionably, such move- 
ments and arguments, tending to the maintneance 
of a status quo, are greatly to the advantage of 
England and France, in whose hands lies the pre- 
sent control of the financial world. 

The greatest economic strength of England 
and France comes from their possession of the 

79 



PAN-GERMANISM 

greatest individual aggregations of capital in the 
world. The vast Rothschild fortune, known in 
Europe as The Fortune, is one twentieth of the 
total wealth of the French nation, and is not, like 
so many American fortunes, the estimated value 
on the stock market of certain securities which, 
in case of a financial panic, might almost lose all 
value, but consists of houses, land, railways, solid 
tangible assets which could be destroyed only by 
the destruction of France. In London, there is 
a group of individuals who between them con- 
trol nearly as considerable and almost as solid 
fortunes. There are no doubt in Germany and 
Austria wealthy men. There are no such fortunes 
as these. In fact, the London and Paris bankers 
can almost control the available resources of the 
world at any one moment, and can therefore prac- 
tically permit or prevent the undertaking of any 
enterprise requiring the use of more than a hun- 
dred million dollars actual value. Many schemes 
nominally more considerable than this have been 
floated independently, but the actual value of the 
assets behind the scheme was a mere tithe of their 
value on paper. 

Modern warfare means that the degree of 
preparation essential to success is impossible 
without the use of immense resources, and that 
the nation can safely invest enough money in 

80 



ENGLAND AND FRANCE 

armies and navies to make them effective only 
when it boasts vast reserves of capital. The Eng- 
lish and French consider it almost impossible for 
any nation to invest such a sum in war without 
straining its resources far beyond the danger 
point, or without somehow borrowing it from 
them, and they will certainly not loan it to their 
enemies. Therefore, they conclude, if Germany is 
thus investing her surplus, the time will come 
when her armies will cost her more than they are 
worth, — indeed, more than the utmost success in 
war could ever enable her to repay. Actually to 
mobilize a modern army requires vast sums in 
ready money, and the English and French do not 
believe any nation can go to war without procur- 
ing the ready money from them. The conclusive 
proof of this supposition they found in the event 
following the appearance of the German warship 
Panther at Agadir. It seems that the Emperor 
would have been willing at any rate to mobilize 
the German army and sought the German bank- 
ers with a request for a loan to the Government. 
The bankers informed him that they had no 
money with which to meet their own pressing 
obligations and that the nation as a matter of 
fact stood on the verge of bankruptcy. Not only 
could it not go to war, it was doubtful even 
whether it could continue to do business for an- 

81 



PAN-GERMANISM 

other week. No one seems to have realized in 
Germany the sum total of the private loans made 
in London and Paris. When war seemed probable, 
a concerted movement by the London and Paris 
bankers for the recalling of all loans practically 
stripped Germany of ready money, and the sale 
of securities on the Berlin Bourse to meet these 
demands almost precipitated a panic of the ut- 
most seriousness. It transpired that Germany 
was conducting nearly ninety per cent of current 
business upon borrowed money subject to recall 
at a moment's notice. By the use of their eco- 
nomic weapons, England and France rendered 
Germany helpless and made war impossible. It 
is clear that in the present era there are weapons 
stronger than armies. 

Not only does the credit system of the world 
centre in London and Paris, but the world's sup- 
ply of the only tangible basis for international 
exchange is also in their hands. From South 
Africa comes a large share of the world's gold; in 
the London and Paris banks are probably the 
world's greatest accumulations of coin and bul- 
lion, while probably there are in France greater 
sums of cash in the hands of the nation itself than 
in any other country in the world. When the 
close of the Franco-Prussian War imposed upon 
France a war indemnity so heavy that the Prus- 

82 



ENGLAND AND FRANCE 

sians exulted openly upon their success in crip- 
pling France for a generation, the French nation 
produced the entire sum from its savings, and 
paid the indemnity with a rapidity which as- 
tounded the world. The French are undoubt- 
edly more capable of repeating such a feat to-day 
than they were in 1870. Such financial strength 
rightly inspires the French and English with con- 
fidence in their ultimate ability to cope with 
Germany. 

It is an astounding fact, of whose truth the 
average man is gradually becoming conscious, 
that England and France own probably the major 
part of the bonded indebtedness of the world. 
Russia, Turkey, Egypt, India, China, Japan, and 
South America are probably owned, so far as any 
nation can be owned, in London or Paris. Pay- 
ment of interest on these vast sums is secured by 
the pledging of the public revenues of these coun- 
tries, and, in the case of the weaker nations, by 
the actual delivery of the perception into the 
hands of the agents of the English and French 
bankers. In addition, a very large share, if not 
the major part, of the stocks and industrial securi- 
ties of the world are owned by those two nations 
and the policies of many of the world's enter- 
prises dictated by their financial heads. The 
world itself, in fact, pays them tribute; it actually 

83 



: 



PAN-GERMANISM 

rises in the morning to earn its living by utilizing 
their capital, and occupies its days in making 
the money to pay them interest which is to make 
them still wealthier. Such facts as these are of 
transcendent importance in evaluating the condi- 
tions in the world which make war possible or im- 
possible. In the estimation of the statesmen in 
London and Paris, Germany is not economically 
strong enough to utilize what she thinks is politi- 
cally and strategically an advantageous position 
without involving an injury to herself which 
might ultimately destroy her prosperity. 

In fact, they find it difficult to believe that 
Germany possesses any economic strength. The 
factors which the Germans consider favorable to 
them, the English and French consider their 
greatest weakness. Germany's imports somewhat 
exceed her exports and create the impression to 
the superficial observer, say English and French 
experts, that she is a creditor country like Eng- 
land, receiving more than she gives, and therefore 
undoubtedly solvent. In this case the statistics 
are misleading. Germany's imports are not really 
the insignia of wealth at all, but are the proof of 
national poverty. The balance in international 
trade, as every economist knows, is paid in goods 
and not in money. The English imports are vastly 
in excess of exports, because England is really a 

84 



ENGLAND AND FRANCE 

creditor country and is thus receiving the interest 
owed her upon her investments. But Germany's 
surplus of imports is not interest payments upon 
her own investments, but payments to her of the 
capital of her own enormous loans. She receives 
the sum in goods, because only in kind can great 
exchanges of value between nations take place; 
she pays the interest with her exports. Germany 
is in truth economically weak, and in order to 
finance so many public and private enterprises, 
as she has in the last thirty years, has been com- 
pelled to borrow heavily. In fact, in an economic 
sense Germany does not own her own business. 
The capital which created it, the ready money 
which keeps it alive, are both borrowed and are 
not yet paid for. Instead of devoting a part of 
the proceeds of the use of this capital to the dis- 
charge of a part of her capital indebtedness, she 
has reinvested all of it, has therefore expanded 
her transactions at a rate all out of proportion to 
the amount of business she was really doing, and 
has therefore exposed herself to the peril of being 
called upon suddenly to pay her debts and of 
being forced into national bankruptcy because of 
her inability so to do. Such financiering is simply 
folly, to the thinking of England and France. 

The small national debt of Germany, too, can- 
not fairly be compared with the large national 

85 



PAN-GERMANISM 

debts of England and France as a sign of the com- 
parative strength of the three nations. She owes 
her debt mostly to them. They owe their debts to 
their own citizens. A nation's position in the 
international scale is not affected at all by the 
existence of public indebtedness which is owed 
to its own citizens, because the total national 
assets are comprised of the public funds plus the 
actual assets of all individuals, including all the 
debts owed either the nation or its citizens by 
other nations or their citizens. The public debts 
of England and France are for the most part na- 
tional assets, while Germany's is almost entirely 
a national liability. If the English and French 
should pay their debt, they would pay it to them- 
selves. In other words, they would merely alter 
the form of recording the national wealth on the 
national books. When Germany pays her na- 
tional debt, she will have to part with actual 
value which will accrue to other nations. Nor do 
the Germans seem to realize that, from the point 
of view of international finance, the national debt 
is not the money which the nation has borrowed 
in its own name, but the total amount of indebt- 
edness which the nation itself and all its citizens 
combined owe in any way to all other nations and 
their private citizens combined. The public in- 
debtedness plus the private indebtedness is the 

86 



ENGLAND AND FRANCE 

true indication of the money which the nation 
may be called upon to pay. England and France, 
publicly or privately, owe very little money out- 
side their own borders. Germany owes money in 
every quarter of the globe on the transactions of 
her citizens. For these reasons, other nations find 
it hard to believe that Germany possesses any 
economic strength at all, and therefore find it dif- 
ficult to understand why she promotes such vast 
schemes of aggression. They can be prosecuted 
only upon borrowed capital and must inevitably 
increase her inherent weakness. Certainly, should 
she lose, she can hardly recover from the catas- 
trophe for a century; and they cannot see how 
she can possibly win. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE GERMAN VIEW OF THE ECONOMIC 
SITUATION 

GERMANY freely admits the great economic 
strength of England and France, so long as 
peace prevails. Once war breaks out, their econo- 
mic strength will become weakness and the posi- 
tion, which they depend upon to secure for them 
control of the world, will in very fact bankrupt 
them. Indeed, the weapons, in what the Germans 
are fond of calling " The next war," will not be 
confined to armies and navies, nor do the Germans 
consider that the state of war will be confined to 
actual hostilities. To their thinking, the war is 
already in progress and is being fought and will 
continue to be fought, with those weapons, infin- 
itely more deadly than cannon and small arms, 
economic crises. They propose to destroy Eng- 
land and France, not in the field, but in the count- 
ing house and in the factory, annihilating the basis 
upon which in the long run armies must depend 
for maintenance. 

The interdependence of the world is econo- 
mically profitable to England and France, so long 
as the existence of peace gives full scope to the 

88 



THE ECONOMIC SITUATION 

play of economic forces which produces that 
steady and uninterrupted interchange of goods 
upon which they rely for their very existence. 
The extent of modern economic development, the 
amount of produce they depend upon receiving 
from abroad, the amount of manufactured goods 
that they depend upon exporting yearly, is the 
measure of their economic weakness at that mo- 
ment when a state of war makes the transporta- 
tion by sea of their necessities dangerous. In 
particular, England must be fed from oversea, 
and must bring from a distance all the raw ma- 
terials which she needs to keep her factories in 
constant operation, and which she must have to 
keep her great population steadily employed and 
able to support itself. This dependence upon 
others is not strength, but weakness of the most 
vital description, for it makes England's prosper- 
ity contingent upon the continuance of certain con- 
ditions which the Germans are by no means will- 
ing to agree are normal or natural. They deny 
strenuously that peace differs from war in any- 
thing except degree. There is a large school of 
thinkers in Germany who insist that all living is 
war, and that upon the continuance of this battle 
the healthy life of the community absolutely de- 
pends, in support of which assertion they cite the 
doctrine of evolution in its varied forms and 

89 



PAN-GERMANISM 

phases. If this be true, a nation which expects to 
survive in this normal struggle for existence must 
not depend upon fighting its battles with other 
nations under what are really technical limita- 
tions. By depending upon the absence of any- 
thing like physical force in the struggle for ex- 
istence, England is building her house upon the 
sands. 

Take, too, the vast capital of whose existence 
England and France are so proud and upon whose 
operations they depend for the perpetuation of 
their predominance. The fact that they have in- 
vested it in every quarter of the globe, intending, 
thereby, to protect themselves from too consider- 
able loss in case war should break out or countries 
become bankrupt, has actually forced them to 
part with the reality of their wealth and to, substi- 
tute for it unreality. They have placed the tan- 
gible results of their investment the width of the 
globe distant from their shores, and therefore 
from their armies, and they have taken in ex- 
change a promise to pay, which they do not pos- 
sess the force to exact, and whose whole value 
depends upon the willingness of the debtors to con- 
sider it binding and to liquidate the debt of their 
own free will when it becomes due. They have in- 
vested their money everywhere except at home, 
and have therefore exposed themselves to its loss, 

90 



THE ECONOMIC SITUATION 

because their ownership of these debts and invest- 
ments depends on the continuance of the present 
notions of commercial morality. This is not in- 
vestment. This is speculation. The reality, — 
the railways, factories, mines, — which represents 
the capital they have invested, belongs literally to 
the borrower. He has the only tangible thing in 
existence in the world, the only thing which pos- 
sibly can exist in the world, as the equivalent 
of that value. Whatever is written on paper is 
paper, and is not to be made into factories or 
railways or tangible assets of any kind by any 
process of jugglery such as the mediaeval bishop 
performed when he baptized the roast and called 
it carp. Things are^ and writing on paper does 
not change the thing or its position. The real 
wealth of England, the surplus of which she is so 
proud, comes not from her soil nor from her own 
factories, — in other words, from those things 
which no one can take away from her except by 
force of arms and which she necessarily protects 
as long as she continues her national existence, — 
but from her income from the accumulations of 
the past with whose actuality she has parted, and 
from which she has received for decades the pay- 
ments represented by the excess of her imports 
over her exports. The world has paid her tribute, 
but the world need continue to pay that tribute 

91 



PAN-GERMANISM 

only so long as it wishes. The moment the bor- 
rowers refuse longer to recognize the validity of 
her claims upon their revenues and incomes, and 
begin to realize that they hold, with a clutch 
which she cannot loosen, the actual substance of 
wealth, then they will begin to see that her 
wealth is not real, but depends purely upon their 
willingness to continue to pay her revenue, which 
they may stop paying her at any moment with- 
out suffering any consequences. To be sure, such 
notions as these presume the violation of every 
notion of commercial morality and expediency at 
present existing in the world, but, as the Germans 
say, ij they were violated, what could England and 
France possibly do to avert destruction. It is 
true, they admit, that such a wholesale repudiation 
of debts would undoubtedly make it difficult for 
nations to borrow from each other for some time 
to come, but, they retort, if such a repudiation 
took place, the debtor nations would not need to 
borrow money for generations to come.^ 

* The author is anxious to state explicitly that these paragraphs 
are not to be understood to imply a reflection upon German national 
or individual morality, and he hopes that, in his desire to put this 
hypothetical case forcibly, he has not given it an immediate applica- 
tion, which, if believed, might be construed as a serious prediction of a 
nature which no historian has a right to make. The point upon which 
the Germans insist is, what would happen to England under such 
circumstances, a statement which by no means argues their intention 
to attempt the repudiation of their debts to-morrow or at any other 
time. They do claim that it is a fundamental point in their favor. 

92 



THE ECONOMIC SITUATION 

Now if we suppose that the German fleet 
should secure control of the sea, either by defeat- 
ing the English or by securing predominance in 
number, it might promptly cut England's com- 
munications with the rest of the world and effec- 
tively bankrupt her by stopping the remittances 
of goods, in which alone the debts owed her by 
other countries can be paid. Germany, to be 
sure, would not get the property England owns 
elsewhere; she might not be able to secure the 
repudiation of English debts by England's debt- 
ors; but she could quite as effectively compel 
England to lose the only tangible evidence of 
ownership and forego the payment of the incomes 
of thousands of her private citizens who would 
infallibly be ruined. In this connection, the Ger- 
mans eagerly claim that, if a nation's debts con- 
sist of the national indebtedness plus the private 
indebtedness, it is not less true that the nation's 
resources are the national revenues plus private 
incomes. If the latter should suffer severely, 
those upon whom the Government chiefly de- 
pends for the payment of taxes would be unable 
to respond and the nation, as well as its citizens, 
would be bankrupt. To secure so stupendous a 
result as this is well worth the expenditure of 
money for building a fleet. That money so far 
as the German nation is concerned is merely in- 

93 



PAN-GERMANISM 

vested in an enterprise from which they confi- 
dently expect returns perhaps one hundred fold. 
As was said at the beginning of this account of 
Pan-Germanism, the Germans are acutely con- 
scious that their position in the world depends 
less upon the actual force they are prepared to 
exert and the actual wealth within their own 
borders than upon their ability to exert more than 
their rivals can. The existence throughout the 
world of a state of war they believe would effect- 
ively bankrupt England and France. Each na- 
tion which owed the latter money would be un- 
able to remit the usual sums, because they would 
be forced to spend the money, and more likely 
the goods already in existence, upon preparation 
for war. This would effectively rob England and 
France of their incomes, of the only tangible evi- 
dence they receive of their vast nominal wealth. 
Failing to receive the usual remittance either in 
money or in goods, they might themselves be 
unable, simply from the lack of materials, to 
prosecute the war with the vigor and dispatch 
they intended. Of course, should England retain 
control of the sea, she would be able even in time 
of war to protect the remittances to her; but the 
Germans depend upon their fleet to interfere, at 
least with the regularity of remittances to Eng- 
land, and depend upon their allies and upon the 

94 



THE ECONOMIC SITUATION 

necessities of various nations elsewhere to stop 
the remittances at their source. They thus hope 
to cripple England and France temporarily by 
the mere force of economic factors which could 
be put into operation by simply beginning a war. 
The Germans claim that those financial fac- 
tors, which seem to be weaknesses in time of 
peace, would be in case of war a tower of strength. 
Germany is almost, if not quite, self-supporting, 
and, with the trade between herself and other 
European nations overland in time of war, she 
could become entirely self-suflicing. Nor is she 
dependent upon her imports for the raw materials 
to keep her factories busy or to maintain her army 
and navy. Whatever the balance may be upon 
the books of the world, she is actually rich, actu- 
ally richer than England or France. So long as 
her army is unbeaten, no one can take away 
from her her factories, mines, and fields. Who- 
ever may own them on paper, she owns them in 
reality and will continue to own them so long as 
she is strong enough to keep them. Supposing 
now that she should repudiate the whole debt 
which she owes other nations, should seize the 
capital out of which her economic development 
was created, what then? Would she not actually 
possess her economic development for nothing? 
Could she ever be compelled to pay for it by 

95 



PAN-GERMANISM 

anything short of actual conquest, and is there in 
the world any nation strong enough to subdue 
her upon her own soil? Would not such an eco- 
nomic blow destroy her enemies with greater cer- 
tainty than any conquest by sea or land? Indeed, 
has she not everything to gain from war and 
nothing to lose? So long as peace prevails and 
she continues to recognize the validity of present 
notions of commercial morality, she must con- 
tinue to pay huge sums, must continue yearly to 
part with actual wealth in goods until the debt is 
paid. The moment war breaks out, she need pay 
nothing. If she is defeated, she will merely be 
compelled to pay what she was already obligated 
to pay. If victorious, she need never pay interest 
or principal. Would that not be a stake many 
times worth playing for, compared to a war in- 
demnity of any size whatever, and, when such a 
manoeuvre might also not improbably compass 
the control of the world's commerce, what Ger- 
man would doubt that the chances of war are 
better than those of peace? Suppose, too, that 
the rest of the countries who owe money to Eng- 
land and France should adopt Germany's tactics 
and seize the occasion of the war as a signal for 
the repudiation of what they owed, and should 
therefore take possession of their own industries; 
would not England and France be literally de- 

96 



THE ECONOMIC SITUATION 

stroyed, reduced to the acres within their own 
boundaries and to those few industries which they 
could prosecute without cooperation from other 
nations? 

The securing of ready money with which to 
begin this war the Germans do not consider a 
vital difficulty despite the fact that it must be in 
some way secured from their enemies.^ Nor do 
they consider it a vital difficulty that they can in 
all probability procure only from the same source 
the sums of money necessary for the completion 
of the preparations for war. So long as the trust- 
ing citizens of England and France are willing 
to lend their private fortunes on no better secur- 
ity than the promise to pay interest and capital 
at some future day, there is every reason why she 
should continue to borrow every cent they are 
willing to lend, for by that measure will she in- 
crease the extent of the ruin which may in time 
overtake those nations, and by that extent will 
she increase the amount of wealth which she may 
get for nothing. She has, of course, continued to 
reinvest in her businesses the whole profits which 
she has derived from her skillful management, 
and she has not made as yet extensive prepara- 

* There is a war reserve in gold in the Fortress of Spandau which 
the Government acknowledges contains 140 millions of marks. It is 
more than probable that this is to be kept as a last resort in case 
defeat should make the defense of Germany itself necessary. 

97 



PAN-GERMANISM 

tions for sinking funds to pay the principal of 
her debts, because she may not need to pay that 
principal. Every debt makes her stronger, every 
loan makes her enemies weaker. She is well 
aware that many of her private citizens have 
invested money in other countries, that she, too, 
is entangled in the network of international in- 
vestments, but she knows that the profits will 
still be enormous, even if her citizens lose every 
penny they have invested outside her borders. 
She will get the cash with which to begin the war 
by borrowing from her enemies, and she will this 
time either commandeer the money in the banks 
before war is declared, or she will make war too 
quickly to permit any repetition of the manoeuvre 
executed by the London and Paris bankers in the 
summer of 1911. She cares very little who claims 
title to that money, so long as she has it, so long 
as they can take it from her only by force. She 
is conscious that German securities will every- 
where fall in the foreign stock exchanges when war 
actually begins; she also knows that English and 
French stocks will tumble likewise, and, she be- 
lieves that when the reaction of economic forces 
is complete, the destruction of values in England 
and France will be too great to make the loss of 
value in her own securities of any significance. 
Besides, who own her securities .^^ Who, there- 

98 



THE ECONOMIC SITUATION 

fore, will bear the fall in value? Her securities 
are only paper. The factories and fields they 
actually represent are not changed in value by 
operations on the stock market. The foreign 
investor will lose money and will bear the only 
ostensible losses and will thus be dealt an addi- 
tional blow. Germany, in other words, can fight 
her enemies with their own money, and may ob- 
tain not only her industries for nothing, but her 
army and navy and the whole cost of the war 
as well. The foreigner may even provide her with 
the money necessary to begin the war. 

Once more the Germans hear around them 
outcries against the morality of this procedure. 
Once again the Germans insist that morals and 
ethics have nothing to do with this particular 
issue. The moral code of the financial world, like 
the moral code of the political world, is based 
upon the notions of England and France, upon 
ideas obviously themselves the result of a pecul- 
iar situation, on whose continuance the welfare 
of England and France depends. Their moral 
code is based on their ownership of the world and 
their desire to continue it in perpetuity, and their 
moral code, therefore, condemns Germany to in- 
significance. The Germans refuse to recognize as 
moral anything which jeopardizes their national 
existence. They claim the right to protect them- 

99 



PAN-GERMANISM 

selves by any weapons which will secure the de- 
sired result, and they have no intention of fore- 
going the use of these terrible economic weapons, 
simply from a supine acceptance of so-called 
ethical notions, whose very presumptions mili- 
tate against them. The international economic 
situation chances to press less heavily upon Ger- 
many than upon other states, and thus affords 
her a significant natural advantage over other 
states which it would be suicidal to forego. If 
worst comes to worst and all else fails, she can 
resort to weapons so powerful as to destroy her 
adversaries. 



CHAPTER VIII 

PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS 

BEFORE so vast a scheme as Pan-Germanism 
can be actually put into operation many 
prerequisites will be necessary to insure its ulti- 
mate success, for Pan-Germanism aims at obtain- 
ing for Germany and her allies control of the world 
and at insuring their retention of that control for 
at least a generation. The absolute prerequisite 
is necessarily the creation of a great fleet, large 
enough to insure freedom of passage of German 
commerce through the English Channel under 
any and all circumstances. The fleet must be 
large enough to make dubious the outcome of a 
battle with the English fleet, in order to prevent 
England from risking battle. Germany, in sooth, 
does not intend to use her fleet for war. It is a 
purely defensive weapon, intended to insure the 
continuance of the position she now holds and of 
that freedom of passage through the Channel, 
which is the prerequisite of all expansion. Until 
that is assured the possession of colonies, the 
entrance to markets, the ability to manufacture, 

are all worthless. She must not permit herself to 

101 



PAN-GERMANISM 

remain in a position where the outlet for her com- 
merce depends upon England's good will. She 
intends to create so large a fleet that it will com- 
mand, as a matter of right, what Germany desires. 
Furthermore, unless her fleet is large she will not 
be able at the same time to intimidate England 
in the Channel and Russia in the Baltic. Unless 
she can maintain her control on the southern 
shore of the Baltic, all of the normal outlets for 
the commerce of North Germany might be closed 
by Russia, and it is almost as essential to insure 
their freedom from Russian interference as it is 
to make sure the English will not close the Chan- 
nel. Germany wishes nothing which she must 
hold on sufferance. Again, if the Germans do not 
succeed in building their fleet fast enough actually 
to endanger England's predominance in the Chan- 
nel, they may still compel her to concentrate her 
fleet in the North Sea, and leave necessarily ex- 
posed to the attacks of Germany's allies the long 
chain of forts and strategic places upon which 
England depends for the protection of her water 
routes to Asia and Africa. 

No less necessary than a great navy is a great 
army, large enough and eflScient enough to pre- 
vent Russia and France by reason of its existence 
from thinking of war. The army is, as the Ger- 
mans claim, primarily defensive. It is the only 

102 



PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS 

barrier between Germany and her enemies. It 
takes the place of the English Channel, of the 
Alps, of the Pyrenees. The army, too, must be 
large enough to enable Germany, in case of war, 
to invade England without so much exposing 
herself to France and Russia as to invite assault 
from either or both. Indeed, it is highly essential 
that the army should be so eflScient that there 
could be no doubt of its repelling a combined 
attack from both should they take the offensive. 
But sufficient strength to discourage them from 
fighting is even more desirable from the German 
point of view, for the Germans do not wish to 
fight. They wish to secure the results of war 
without the concomitant disadvantages, and they 
consider as the only probable offensive use of the 
army the necessary invasion of England. Again, 
an army large enough to make possible such 
movements would also be large enough to put 
into operation the economic factors, which Ger- 
many expects will prove so advantageous to her 
and so fatal to England and France. Hence, 
every step in the development of such an army 
is a step toward the achievement of Germany's 
purposes by that type of offensive weapon eu- 
phemistically known as peace. 

The seizure of Belgium and Holland will very 
likely be the first German movement when the 

103 



PAN-GERMANISM 

actual accomplishment of Pan-Germanism seems 
fairly assured. The position of these two coun- 
tries, their wealth, and the traditions of European 
policy have gained them so much prominence and 
have caused all nations to attach so much im- 
portance to them, that Germany will certainly 
not take possession of them until the last moment. 
Indeed, it has been so long held that an attack 
upon the autonomy of Belgium or Holland would 
be the equivalent of a declaration of war upon 
Europe that Germany will certainly avoid any 
such outspoken manifestation of her intentions. 
Notwithstanding, their position is an absolute 
prerequisite of the ultimate success of Pan- 
Germanism, and the railway lines for landing 
troops in the proper places are already built and 
the canals for supplying those troops with food 
are already being dug. When the German Em- 
peror recently visited Belgium a remark was 
made by a certain dignitary that Belgium was 
prepared, to which he is reported to have replied, 
that they were wise to prepare. 

But Germany needs the strategic points which 
those two countries control. The Netherlands 
alone can furnish her a suitable naval base on the 
Channel from which to contest its possession with 
the English or from which to intimidate the Eng- 
lish fleet into permitting German ships complete 

104 



PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS 

freedom of passage. So long as the German fleet 
must operate from a base of supplies as far removed 
as Kiel from the naval base of the English in the 
Thames, her position must be at the best anoma- 
lous. The occupation of Holland would make it 
a reality. From Holland, too, the German army 
could most advantageously invade England. 
From Belgium, it can most easily reach Paris. 
With both countries in their hands, an attack on 
either capital would be equally feasible, and the 
capture of either would be equally fatal to the 
Triple Entente. 

The commercial significance of the position of 
Belgium and Holland is no less striking. They 
control the outlet of the Rhine, and therefore can 
prevent Germany's complete utilization of the 
splendid natural highway, draining so large and 
so rich a section of her land, a highway so easily 
connected with her other river systems by a net- 
work of canals. Plans are already being executed 
for a network of canals between the Rhine and the 
Westphalian coal fields, by means of which they 
expect to supply the fleet at its new base and 
which promise largely to increase at once the 
facilities of transportation, and, above all, to 
reduce its cost, for the every-day trade of the 
Empire. The possession of these two countries, 
moreover, would at once give Germany the great 

105 



PAN-GERMANISM 

colonial empire of which she dreams. Holland 
owns Java and the Celebes, admirably fitted for 
colonization, from whom for three centuries she 
has drawn a princely revenue; she owns a fertile 
section of Guiana and rich islands in the West 
Indies whose strategic value would also be great; 
Belgium owns the vast Congo Free State, one of 
the wealthiest of European dependencies. Here 
would be an outlet for German manufactures of 
the first importance. If their colonies alone could 
be retained, Germany could restore the autonomy 
of those states in Europe, pay a heavy war indem- 
nity, and yet find the war well worth while. 

Another prerequisite of final success would be 
the seizure of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. 
With them in her hands, the Baltic would be to 
all intents and purposes hers. Russia would be 
squeezed into its furthermost corner. The Sund 
could be closed at will and all Russian access to 
the outside world effectually prevented. If such 
a catastrophe were not sufficient to detach her 
from the Triple Entente, it would certainly pre- 
vent the general financial panic, which would in 
all probability result in Europe on the outbreak of 
war, from expending its force upon Germany itself; 
for the Russians, once the Baltic was closed, 
would be compelled to sell their products to Ger- 
many in exchange for her manufactured goods. 

106 



PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS 

Conceivably there might thus be created a nexus 
between the two nations which might permanently 
bring about some relationship freeing them both 
from the spectre of war. The annexation of the 
Scandinavian countries would also put into Ger- 
many's hands beyond a peradventure the great 
supplies of iron, coal, and wood which the out- 
break of war would make far more valuable than 
their intrinsic worth in time of peace. Nor does 
she forget that Denmark still owns a valuable 
colony or so in the West Indies, which would be 
worth her while. Some arrangement with Swit- 
zerland would also be necessary, although its 
exact nature could only be indicated by the exi- 
gencies of the moment. Napoleon's phrase that 
Switzerland was the key to Europe the Germans 
constantly bear in mind. Through Switzerland 
an attack could easily be delivered upon the Ger- 
man rear by France in case of war. Germany or 
Italy might profitably utilize it themselves for 
an attack upon the French rear, while the Austri- 
ans have not forgotten that a military road to 
Vienna runs through Switzerland. However, Ger- 
many's arrangements with Switzerland will prob- 
ably be made rather to prevent the utilization of 
the Swiss passes by others than from an expecta- 
tion of utilizing them herself. 

A most essential part of the structure of Pan- 

107 



PAN-GERMANISM 

Germanism is a confederation of states in the Bal- 
kans either outwardly independent and secretly 
controlled by Germany or Austria or dependent 
in some way upon Austria or Italy. The great 
stretch of mountain, tableland, and valley, ex- 
tending from the heights of the Tyrolese and 
Transylvanian Alps to the ^gean and the Medi- 
terranean, has long been loosely designated, from 
political rather than geographical reasons, the Bal- 
kans. It boasts no real geographical unity and 
has been divided for political reasons into so many 
different entities at so many different times that it 
is in reality from every point of view nothing but 
a geographical expression. At the moment of the 
conception of Pan-Germanism, the states of this 
region were partly autonomous, partly in the 
hands of Austria, and partly controlled by Tur- 
key. The creation out of them in some way or 
other of some kind of an entity or entities, which 
the Triple Alliance could keep under its control, 
is absolutely essential to the success of the most 
striking part of Pan-Germanism. For in those 
defiles and valleys are the keys to Europe. Down 
along the coast of the Black Sea runs the great 
road from Russia to Constantinople and the East; 
down the Danube valley, across the river at Bel- 
grade, through the Balkans by way of Sophia and 
Adrianople, runs the great continental highway, 

108 



PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS 

trodden for a thousand years by Roman, Barba- 
rian, Crusader, Infidel, leading from the Rhine and 
Danube valleys to Constantinople and the East. 
Round through Macedonia and Albania runs the 
perfectly practical road, used long ago by the 
Visigoths, leading from Constantinople to Trieste, 
Venice, and the valley of the Po. At Saloniki is a 
great port from which a fleet might control the 
MgesLYi. The western side of the Balkans is the east- 
ern shore of the Adriatic, and its possession would 
insure to the Triple Alliance complete control 
of that important sea. Could they secure, there- 
fore, by controlling the Balkans, possession of the 
great roads between Europe and Asia and of the 
strategic positions necessary for controlling the 
iEgean and the Adriatic, the English position in 
the Mediterranean might be made untenable. At 
any rate, the English so-called Protectorate over 
Turkey and Greece would be at once terminated, 
and the possession by Italy and Austria of naval 
bases in the Adriatic and the ^gean would prac- 
tically render useless all the English dispositions 
based upon Malta as a centre. Thus the Triple 
Alliance would secure a foothold and probable 
control of the eastern Mediterranean, and would 
throw back upon their base in the western Medi- 
terranean the English and French fleets, and 
might be enabled without practical interference 

109 



PAN-GERMANISM 

to take possession of Egypt and Suez. Even if 
so much were not accomplished, the trade route 
overland through Constantinople into the neutral 
territory of Turkey, and so by way of the Baghdad 
Railway to the Persian Gulf and India, would 
be a reality, and it would be unassailable by the 
English fleet, nor would it ever be exposed to those 
dangers which so constantly threaten the English 
Empire with dissolution. 

Chiefest of all, however, the existence of the 
Balkans, their geographical position, their racial 
and religious character, their traditions and his- 
tory, would furnish Germany with the necessary 
prize to offer Austria as the price of her assistance 
in the execution of Pan-Germanism. The rulers 
of Austria have long seen that her expansion to 
the north and east was improbable and undesir- 
able; that her expansion to the west was perma- 
nently blocked by the Alps, and that she could 
only expand to the south along the great plains of 
the lower Danube and Black Sea, down through 
the valleys of Servia to the ^gean, and to the 
southwest to the Adriatic. Like all other nations, 
she sees the permanent assurances of her contin- 
ued national existence only in the possession of an 
outlet to the sea, and a possible share in the com- 
merce with the less developed parts of the world, 
from which her rivals are so rapidly obtaining 

110 



PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS 

wealth and position. She early found in the Bal- 
kans no less powerful a rival than Russia, one as 
determined as she to secure similar opportunity 
for expansion, and one to whom that opportunity 
is not less essential than it is to her. Between the 
two no compromise is possible. Austria may keep 
Russia out of the Balkans, but in the face of Rus- 
sian opposition she cannot unaided take posses- 
sion. The necessary assistance, Germany and 
Italy proposed to afford her through the execu- 
tion of the great schemes for the aggrandizement 
of all three. 

With the Balkans in their hands, the reorgan- 
ization of Turkey would be the next essential 
step. Its undeniable importance is the result of 
the very factors which have kept the Turk so long 
in possession. In the past, Europe considered its 
many strategic points too valuable to be owned 
by any nation not so ineflScient and weak as to 
render their use improbable. The incurable mal- 
ady of the Sick Man alone caused the doctors to 
allow him to live. First of all, Turkey holds the 
bridge between Europe and Asia, for whose pos- 
session throughout the centuries Roman and 
Barbarian, Christian and Infidel, had so vigorously 
fought. The Turk also holds Asia Minor, from 
whose rich fields Rome had drawn a vast revenue, 

whose roads lead into the great vales of the Tigris 

111 



PAN-GERMANISM 

and Euphrates, where in antiquity stood the 
greatest of the old empires. In Asia Minor, too, 
are marts of trade from which Phoenician and 
Greek cities almost without number had grown 
rich and powerful and cultured. The whole North 
African littoral owes allegiance to the Sultan; 
Tripoli was still nominally administered by him, 
and would furnish to the Turk's master a strategic 
point of the first consequence, flanking Egypt on 
the one hand and Tunis on the other, furnished 
with harbors whence a fleet might assail with con- 
fident expectation of success the English lines of 
communication with Suez. Above all, the Sultan 
is head of the Mohammedan religion, ruling still 
over the countless hordes of Moslems in the Eng- 
lish and French possessions in Africa and Asia, 
to whom they owe implicit obedience and for 
whose safety they have often evinced the utmost 
concern. Indeed, around him is already centering 
the great movement known as Pan-Islam, which 
contemplates nothing less than the expulsion of 
the unbeliever from the lands of the Prophet's 
followers by a great Jehad of unheard-of dimen- 
sions. Might not the Sultan, properly "inspired" 
in some way, be induced to instigate or proclaim 
such a war at a time when English and French 
authority in Africa and Asia might for all practical 
purposes be extinguished by it? An outbreak as 

112 



PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS 

general and as powerful might conceivably compel 
them to send reinforcements from Europe to such 
an extent as to weaken them at home and permit 
Germany to begin the final stages of the war with 
every prospect of complete success. Naturally, 
Germany does not expect to receive everything 
and give nothing. She has undertaken the reor- 
ganization of Turkey, the building of an army and 
a navy adequate for the prosecution of such enter- 
prises, and she has, as a matter of course, provided 
the necessary financial backing to relieve the 
Turk of pressure from his old supporters, England 
and France, and from all future fears as to deficits. 
From the Turk could be secured the railway 
concession of vital commercial importance which 
should join Constantinople with the Persian Gulf, 
and whose existence would alone repay Germany 
and her allies for all their expenditures and risks. 
It would, of course, be adequately protected by the 
new Turkish army and fleet. To insure its safety 
from an attack by Russia, Persia would be reor- 
ganized as an independent nation under the Ger- 
man segis. Thus also would be secured the coast 
road along the Persian Gulf to India which Alex- 
ander had followed, thus also would be insured to 
Germany the control of navigation in the Gulf 
itself. Both would put into her hands invaluable 
points. She would be led by the coast road into 

113 



PAN-GERMANISM 

the valley of the Indus behind the great defenses 
at Quetta; in the rear, therefore, of the British 
position. A fleet emerging from the Gulf would 
enter the Indian Ocean behind the English naval 
defenses, and see all India lying before her, unde- 
fended. 

The Germans do not fail to appreciate that, 
although they are the originators of Pan-German- 
ism and may perhaps not unreasonably expect 
to be the chief gainers by it, they cannot hope 
finally to achieve success without the hearty 
cooperation of Austria, of Italy, of Turkey, of 
Persia, and, above all, of the Balkans. They real- 
ize that these states will by no means enter a con- 
flict of this magnitude out of love for Germany; 
that they are not likely to be held to any agree- 
ments that they may make by a moral sense of 
obligation, which the Germans themselves frankly 
deny is of any validity in international agree- 
ments; that, unless they are fully satisfied with 
their own gains, they will themselves interfere at 
some awkward moment and perhaps prevent the 
completion of the scheme at all. Therefore, the 
ultimate success of Pan-Germanism will depend 
as much upon the division of the spoils when the 
victory is won, as upon any single factor, and 
upon the acceptance beforehand of such plans for 
the allotment of territory as to satisfy the ambi- 

114 



PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS 

tions of the various parties without vitally offend- 
ing any other equally essential party. Divide et 
Impera. In all probability, Austria is to get the 
Adriatic, access to the sea through the Balkans, 
and Egypt and Palestine; Italy will certainly ex- 
pect the rest of the North African littoral, while 
the Balkan States, European Turkey, and Persia 
will insist upon a guarantee of their autonomy so 
far as their own local affairs are concerned. Ger- 
many, therefore, will surrender the Mediterra- 
nean to her allies in exchange for India, the rest 
of Africa, and the East and West India Islands. 
Spain might have to be paid with a slice of west- 
ern Morocco. Whether or not the coalition will 
be strong enough to lay its hands on South 
America in defiance of the United States will 
have to be determined by the circumstances of 
their victory. 



CHAPTER IX 

FIRST STEPS 

WHEN the historian leaves the considera- 
tion of schemes and plans and undertakes 
even to sketch the course of events in current his- 
tory, he finds himself in the peculiar position for 
a historian of being overwhelmed with details of 
whose meaning he is by no means certain. Indeed, 
he is continually exposed to the danger of assum- 
ing that all events have some meaning and that 
particular events are of necessity those truly 
significant. While the archives remain closed 
and the diplomatic correspondence a sealed book, 
while the real answers to all those questions he 
most anxiously asks are known only to a few dis- 
tressingly discreet men, he can hardly do more 
than indicate the main features of current politics, 
which seem, after mature consideration, to have 
an absolutely unavoidable connection with the 
execution of this great scheme. Indeed, the his- 
torian is in that extraordinary position, true of no 
other epoch in history, of knowing the plans far 
more certainly than he does their execution. He 
must in matter of fact be constantly prepared, 

116 



FIRST STEPS 

always with due caution, to interpret facts, which 
he frequently does not understand, by means of 
the schemes which he definitely knows to be in 
the minds of statesmen. Nor is there possible in 
modern history anything like a clear demonstra- 
tion of the truth of any single proposition by the 
line and precept familiar to investigators in other 
fields. In the nature of things, final proof of the 
truth of any single assertion is impossible, and will 
continue to be impossible for certainly two gen- 
erations and perhaps a century. The historian, 
therefore, is forced to do the best he can, and must 
be more than chary of attempting to deal with 
anything except the broadest outlines of the story. 
Exactly what relation to its broad outline any 
single series of events may have, is impossible to 
indicate with accuracy, and the reader must be 
aware that the historian is not attempting to give 
him certainties, but is forced to give him state- 
ments which would be considered, in treating any 
period of past history, conjectures, but which are, 
in current history, literally the best we have. 

The authorship of the great scheme which we 
call Pan-Germanism is least of all a matter of 
certainty. There seems to be little doubt that it 
was the product of German thought and of German 
interests, but no student of current affairs can 
believe for a moment that important aspects of it 

117 



PAN-GERMANISM 

were not the result of the views and interests of 
Austria and Italy. Bismarck was the first states- 
man to see all its possibilities, though we are as 
yet unable to be certain how much of what is now 
called Pan-Germanism he is actually responsible 
for. Von Bieberstein, Von Tirpitz, and above all 
the present Emperor, are responsible for much, 
and certainly deserve the credit (or discredit) of 
bringing the scheme to its present state of per- 
fection. The date of its origin ^ is an even more 
perplexing question, and could be more definitely 
settled if we were sure that events of the past 
generation were all steps in the development or 
furtherance of the same scheme and not of two or 
three schemes, out of which the exigencies of times 
and occasions gradually developed the present 
Pan-Germanism. The historian, who wishes to be 
cautious, is inclined to take the latter view and to 
conclude that Pan-Germanism is an outgrowth of 
the various policies advocated by German states- 
men after the formation of the present empire. 

The creation of the fleet, wTiose existence at 
present is without doubt one of the definitive 
elements of Pan-Germanism, was probably, as 
the Germans claim, not as vital a part of it as we 

* Cecil Battine, in the Fortnightly Review, xci, New Series, 1056, 
1057, places the beginning of Pan-Germanism between 1893 and 
1895. Article 4 of the Constitution of 1871 indicates that colonies 
were foreseen at the very beginning. 

118 



FIRST STEPS 

might easily suppose. As has already been said, 
the German looks upon the fleet as the only 
means of insuring to Germany the continuance 
of her present position, unfavorable as she con- 
siders that to be. The fleet is essential, not so 
much to assist her expansion as to make positive 
her existence. In all probability there have been 
three phases of German policy: the first, an at- 
tempt to secure colonies; the second, an attempt 
to obtain entrance into the markets of the East 
by the establishment of a trade route across the 
Balkans and Turkey, which formed by interna- 
tional agreement a neutral zone; and thirdly, the 
determinedly aggressive scheme for the actual 
forcible conquest of the world. Exactly when the 
one gave way to the other, exactly which of the 
many events in recent history belong to one and 
which to another, is diflScult to indicate with 
anything approaching accuracy. 

During the decade between 1880 and 1890, an 
extended effort was made to obtain in various 
parts of the world suitable colonies for German 
expansion. The land not already occupied by 
European nations was inconsiderable in area, 
unfavorably located, thinly populated, and not 
possessed of obvious commercial advantages; 
but such as was available Germany occupied, not 
because she deemed it adequate provision for her 

119 



PAN-GERMANISM 

needs, but because, at the moment, she saw no 
other chances for meeting the exigencies which 
she knew were certain to arise within a decade. 
The colonies thus founded on either coast of 
Africa and in the South Seas speedily proved 
their unsuitability for colonization by white men, 
and the improbability of their affording before 
the lapse of a century anything like an adequate 
market for German manufactures. To be sure, 
these colonies were in area nearly a million square 
miles, but their products were not greatly in 
excess of five dollars value for each square mile, 
a sum too absurdly inconsequential to be men- 
tioned. The population of about fourteen mil- 
lions was too undeveloped and too sparse to make 
the creation of a state possible. All the desirable 
land for colonies, as a matter of fact, was already 
in the hands of other nations, and the Germans 
realized with bitterness that they had been able 
to secure what they held, simply because other 
nations had not considered it of value. It was 
clear that the execution of any schemes for Ger- 
man expansion would involve interference with 
other nations. 

The next attempt, probably only one of several, 
seems to have been a variation of the well-known 
European method of taking possession of other 
people's property, called peaceful penetration. 

120 



FIRST STEPS 

The nation, proposing to absorb a district and 
make a colony out of it, loans money to the ruler 
and to as many of his subjects as possible; obtains 
as security for the money advanced, if it can, a 
part of the public revenue; builds railways in 
exchange for large grants of land, and, in gen- 
eral, "develops" the country. Then, when the 
available resources have been pretty completely 
hypothecated, the nation claims that its interests 
in the territory are so considerable that it must 
be conceded a share in the direction of adminis- 
tration and policy, in order to insure the safety 
of its investment. A little study of the situation 
soon convinced the Germans that the French 
influence in Morocco, the English influence in 
Egypt, the English and Russian influence in 
Persia, and the influence of the United States 
in Central America were due precisely to these 
methods, and the Germans saw no reason why 
they should not "peaceably" penetrate some one 
of the South American nations, by pleading the 
same highly moral purpose of developing the 
country for the use and behoof of its inhabitants, 
who were, of course, to be assumed incapable of 
developing it themselves. After some hesitation, 
they seemed to have pitched upon Venezuela as 
the most favorable scene of operations. They 
succeeded in placing some large loans, in buying 

121 



PAN-GERMANISM 

some mines, and in initiating a number of busi- 
ness enterprises, and, then, in most approved 
fashion, descended upon the Republic, anchored 
a warship in its harbor, and made the stereo- 
typed demand for some share in the control of its 
administration. Of course, the rest of the world 
promptly saw the trend of German policy, and, 
with equal promptitude, realized its objective; 
the United States, as the nearest country, in- 
voked against Germany a new variety of the 
Monroe Doctrine, and informed the disgusted 
Germans that they would not be permitted to 
interfere in the government of Venezuela. They 
certainly could not afford peaceably to penetrate 
countries unless they were to be allowed to enjoy 
the profits of the enterprise. Besides, they be- 
came aware, with rather painful force, of the fact, 
which they had no doubt always known, that they 
could obtain access to such a colony in the Gulf 
of Mexico, while England and the United States 
controlled the Atlantic Ocean, only by the per- 
mission of those two nations, both of whom in- 
dicated with considerable firmness their distinct 
dislike of Germany's proposed action. 

The Germans turned their eyes, therefore, to 
Africa, and in particular toward the great tem- 
perate district of South Africa as a zone becom- 
ingly fitted by nature for the use and behoof of 

122 



FIRST STEPS 

the white race. The temperate climate, the pre- 
sence of the great diamond mines, of deposits of 
gold in all probability huge in size, the certainty 
of the profitableness of agriculture and cattle- 
raising, offered enticing prospects for the success- 
ful development there of a great colony, which 
would provide a considerable market for German 
goods and would raise products of its own with 
which to pay for them. German Southwest 
Africa would afford a basis from which to act in 
case they should ever desire to take the offensive, 
but the existence of the Boer Republic made it 
probable that it would not be necessary for Ger- 
many herself to take the field; she could much 
more easily and profitably act through the hands 
of the Boers. The strained relations between the 
latter and the English simplified the problem of 
producing a casus belli for a war which might 
easily result in robbing England of a most valu- 
able colony, which Germany might succeed in 
annexing. In addition, the project boasted the 
double advantage of testing the strength of the 
British Empire, its defensive ability, the loyalty 
of its subjects, and, whatever the result might be, 
the information, which the war would certainly 
afford Germany, would be well worth the money 
and arms she would have to furnish the Boers to 
get them to begin it. Supposing that the war 

123 



PAN-GERMANISM 

should succeed, should reveal, as the Germans 
believed it would, the disloyalty of the English 
colonists in South Africa, should make clear to all 
Europe the weakness of Imperial England, the 
moral results would be without question stupen- 
dous. Its success, even if it should result in creat- 
ing a Boer state too strong for Germany to inter- 
fere with, would cut the communications between 
the Cape Colony and the vast estate of Rhodesia, 
which lay adjacent to German East Africa, as 
well as to German West Africa, and which could 
then easily be annexed without danger and with- 
out cost. To be sure, it would be necessary to 
train the Boers in modern warfare and to equip 
them and furnish them with funds, and there was 
always the danger that England would discover 
the fact prematurely and take action before the 
Boers or Germany herself should be ready. How- 
ever, some risks were inevitable. 

The Boers took kindly to the idea. The immi- 
gration of Englishmen into their territory, the 
rapid expansion of the English colonies to the 
north and south of them, had shown them clearly 
that their own expansion was problematical, be- 
cause the Uitlanders were multiplying by immi- 
gration at a rate vastly in excess of the natural 
increase of the Boers and at a rate which made 
it a certainty that many years would not elapse 

124 



FIRST STEPS 

before the Boers would be outnumbered to so 
great an extent that their real power would dis- 
appear. From their point of view, the preserva- 
tion of their autonomy depended upon action 
before a further increase of strength to the Uit- 
landers should make action impossible. Every 
year's delay only reduced their chances of victory. 
Moreover, they were promised bountiful assist- 
ance and all the supplies they should need. There 
is little doubt they fully intended in case of vic- 
tory to defy Germany as well as England, and, if 
possible, cheat her of all the advantages she had 
hoped for. Conscious of the issue, England ex- 
erted herself to the utmost and inflicted upon the 
Boers in the end a crushing defeat. Not so much 
the wealth of her South African domain excited 
her as the determination to make manifest to 
Germany and the world the strength of her im- 
perial bond. Her prestige she realized must be 
maintained at any cost, not only because of the 
conclusions which her subject peoples in India 
and Egypt would draw from a defeat, but because 
of the conclusions which European nations would 
draw. She simply could not afford to be defeated; 
the loss of the war might precipitate a general 
alliance of all Europe against her. To the amaze- 
ment of the Germans, England was able to 
finance the war without too much effort, maintain 

125 



PAN-GERMANISM 

an army in the field whose efficiency, even under 
new and adverse conditions, was astonishing, and 
which was supplied, equipped, and reinforced 
from England despite the distance between South- 
ampton and Cape Town. Every nation in Eu- 
rope knew that England had performed a feat 
which it could not perform, and had demonstrated 
a degree of executive and military efficiency for 
which no one had given her credit. The still more 
crushing defeat of Germany and her schemes for 
weakening the British Empire was accomplished 
by the formation of the South African Union, in 
whose federal bond are comprised all the varied 
peoples of South Africa, and in which the Boers 
have taken their place with singular success. So 
far as can be seen by foreign observers, so far as 
can be told from the statements of the inhabitants, 
the tact of the English administrators has pretty 
completely settled the grievances of the various 
elements of the European population, and has 
gone a long way toward solving the perplexing 
race issue, caused by the presence of so large a 
number of the natives. 

German statesmen, thus thwarted, gave up, 
so far as can be learned, for good and all their 
designs upon South Africa, and turned their 
attention to the much more feasible scheme of 
constructing an overland route to the Persian 

126 



FIRST STEPS 

Gulf. Germany and Austria very well knew that 
they did not own the territory stretching from 
their own borders to the Persian Gulf, and that 
they could not hope to take possession of it in the 
face of the international determination to pre- 
serve its neutrality. They counted upon this very 
neutrality as the basis for their scheme of building 
a railway from Constantinople to Baghdad. To 
relieve the fears of England and Russia, they did 
not propose to locate its terminus actually upon 
the Persian Gulf. After some difficulty and nego- 
tiation, the concession was secured from Turkey 
and the acquiescence of the international concert 
was obtained. It is not certain, but it is highly 
probable, that at this time the real purpose of the 
railway was not suspected in London or in St. 
Petersburg. However that may be, the loan for 
its construction was underwritten in Berlin and 
the building of the railway was begun in sections. 
The details of construction are hardly of conse- 
quence here, and it suffices to say that the last sec- 
tion of the road is just about to be begun. After 
work was well under way, England and Russia 
realized its purport and began to consider opera- 
tions in Persia which should effectively prevent 
the railway from doing anything more than de- 
velop Asia Minor. 

Thwarted thus at every turn, German states- 

127 



PAN-GERMANISM 

men found themselves fairly driven to adopt the 
comprehensive aggressive scheme which we now 
call Pan-Germanism. They began its execution 
at the point of least resistance and by methods 
so far as possible of a neutral nature. The fleet 
was already under construction; the railway was 
rapidly being built; the obvious step to take was 
the peaceful penetration of Turkey as the neces- 
sary preliminary for assuring Germany the con- 
tinuance of the concession. Turkey, as every one 
knew, was weak, disorganized in every way, and 
nothing could be more natural than an attempt 
by the Sultan himself at the proper administra- 
tion of his own country and the adoption of finan- 
cial measures which would insure the payment of 
his debts and his household revenue. The Sultan 
eagerly accepted the secret tender of German 
assistance in the accomplishment of such ex- 
tremely desirable ends, and began, apparently 
upon his own initiative but really under German 
direction, the reorganization of the army and 
navy, the reorganization of the finances of his 
empire, gradually introducing German officers 
into the important positions in the state. Men 
were appointed governors of provinces to intro- 
duce local reforms calculated to diminish the 
amount of racial warfare, the friction between 
the soldiery and the populace, and to minimize 

128 



FIRST STEPS 

the difficulties arising from the old struggle be- 
tween the Latin and Greek Churches. Gradually, 
Germany insinuated herself into the confidence 
of the Young Turk party, already long in exist- 
ence, and whose main aim was to cast off the 
foreign rule which had so long pressed hardly 
upon the Turk and had drained his country of 
its resources for the satisfaction of foreign debts 
for whose making the Turk himself was not re- 
sponsible. Eventually, by means of the agitation 
undertaken by the Young Turks, organized by 
the Committee of Union and Progress at Saloniki, 
a revolution was accomplished (probably with 
the connivance of the Sultan), a constitution was 
adopted, a new Sultan took office, responsible 
government began, and Turkey was thus freed 
from the treaty obligations made by the older 
rSgime, which had given every nation except Ger- 
many some obvious interest to defend and there- 
fore some obvious right to interfere. If Germany 
was to base her scheme of Pan-Germanism upon 
the control of Turkey, she must certainly control 
it by means of a government owing its very exist- 
ence to her. The price of the support of the Turks 
was to be the autonomy of Turkey in local govern- 
ment, and protection from the interference of her 
old "friends." 

Meanwhile, the Germans diligently investi- 

129 



PAN-GERMANISM 

gated the condition of afiFairs in the Balkans, in 
Morocco, Persia, Egypt, and India. They found 
in all a native party of some considerable strength 
and vigor, which had already had continuous ex- 
istence for a decade or more, and whose main 
object was the obtaining of autonomy and the 
exclusion of the foreigner. Those parties had been 
nourished upon the democratic literature of the 
Occidental nations, had been fired with enthu- 
siasm for self-government by the spectacle of par- 
liamentary and republican government in Europe 
and in the United States, and, in fact, had as- 
sumed that no small share of the prosperity of the 
Western nations and the greater part of their 
strength were due to their form of government. 
The natives saw that it would be profitable and 
pleasurable for them to govern themselves, or, 
as a cynic would be more inclined to put it, for 
them to govern their less progressive countrymen. 
In these subject countries of Europe, Asia, and 
Africa, the power so long in control had been 
alien in race and religion, had long systematic- 
ally sacrificed the interests of the people to the 
assumed exigencies of international politics, and 
had placed upon the country heavy financial 
burdens for the production of a revenue which 
the people themselves were not allowed to spend, 
and for which few natives considered that the 

130 



FIRST STEPS 

people even received an equivalent. In Africa, 
Asia Minor, and Egypt the majority of the people 
were Mohammedans, who had long chafed under 
the control of the Infidel, and who were only too 
ready to enlist in a movement for a change of 
government, which would possess the sanction 
of a religious crusade. The ground, therefore, 
was ready for the Germans, and the tools to till 
it were at hand. 

In the Balkans, a peculiar admixture of races 
and religions had produced a singularly complex 
situation, in which the various forces reacted 
upon each other with continually surprising re- 
sults. At the same time, so far as the people them- 
selves were concerned, the two great issues were 
religious, — the survival of the crusade of the 
Christian against the Turk, and, on the other 
hand, of the still older quarrel between the Latin 
and Greek Churches. From both of these counts, 
as well as on many national and racial issues, dis- 
content was rife, and could in all probability be 
turned to political advantage by Germany and 
her ally, Austria. Above all was this probable 
because the most evident enemy, the oldest and 
the worst hated enemy of all the Balkan peoples, 
was the Turk, whose rule over them had long 
furnished them with practically the only senti- 
ment they had in common, a vigorous hatred of 

131 



PAN-GERMANISM 

the Infidel. Now, when Germany should have 
reorganized Turkey and have gotten the Sultan, 
and the administration, to say nothing of the 
army and navy, well into her hands, what would 
be simpler than for her to permit the Balkan 
nations to begin this war under her direction, 
and thus secure their gratitude by the realization 
of the ideals cherished for so many centuries? 
Would it not also be easy to satisfy in the most 
thoroughgoing manner their oft-repeated de- 
mands for the freedom from oppression of their 
co-religionists in Macedonia and Albania? It 
seemed highly probable to the Balkan nations 
that they could not fail to be gainers by an alli- 
ance of this sort, and, while they hesitated, like 
the man in the fable, to admit the camel to their 
tent, they fully realized that the German offers 
did not present them the alternative of rejection. 
Should they not see fit amicably to come to an 
agreement with Austria and Germany, they would 
not unlikely run the risk of absorption by force 
at some future time, when they would certainly 
not receive such favors as the terms suggested. 
Like the Trojans, they feared the Greeks even 
when they came bearing gifts ; but, if it was danger- 
ous to accept the presents, it was more dangerous 
to decline them. Under any circumstances, they 
did not see that money, munitions of war, mili- 

132 



FIRST STEPS 

tary instruction by German and Austrian officers, 
assistance in the fortification of their own coun- 
try could be so very undesirable, and it was as 
clear to them as it was to their new friends that 
such weapons would be susceptible of more than 
one use. Indeed, the weapons and instruction 
were of themselves a guarantee of their new allies' 
good faith. 

In Morocco, the Germans found an even more 
favorable scene of operations. They learned that 
the Sultan had governed regularly by forming 
alliances with part of the tribesmen against the 
rest. By clever diplomacy and the occasional use 
of money, he had managed to keep them jealous 
of one another and prevented their uniting against 
him. His main dependence, nevertheless, was the 
existence of an army of mercenaries whose size 
was distinctly limited by his own poverty. The 
French had come to his rescue and had provided 
him with a highly trained force of really remark- 
able soldiers, sufficiently numerous to keep him 
in the ascendency. The tribesmen looked upon 
the presence of the French, therefore, with any- 
thing but favor, for they saw that the latter were 
rapidly making it possible for the Sultan to defy 
the tribesmen even if united, an eventuality which 
certainly meant the coming of an era vastly differ- 
ent from the age of license and rapine to which 

133 



PAN-GERMANISM 

they had so long been accustomed. On general 
grounds, therefore, they welcomed the advances 
of the Germans, scenting probably presents of 
money or arms, and suspecting that the latter 
might aid them to restore the conditions to what 
they had been before the French interfered. The 
rapacity of the Sultan, his anxiety to collect the 
uttermost farthing due him, the imposition of 
new taxes from time to time, and, above all, the 
actual exercise of force for securing obedience 
gave the tribes only too ample evidence of the ex- 
cellent basis for their fears. The new French na- 
tive regiments, moreover, conducted themselves 
with a license unbecoming soldiers and aroused 
against themselves the hatred of the people. So 
considerable was the number of such cases that 
they formed one of the chief excuses for German 
interference. Nor did the Germans forget that 
an army as large and as extraordinary in quality 
as the French force in Morocco might become a 
distinct factor in a European war. They would 
therefore be making no mistake in providing this 
army with too much work in Morocco to permit 
its departure. 

In Persia also the Germans made good head- 
way. The opposition on national grounds to the 
encroachments of England and Russia was con- 
siderable, but lacked a definite aim and capable 

184 



FIRST STEPS 

organization, and the revolutionary party lacked 
the necessary money to finance a revolt. The 
money, the Germans were more than willing to 
provide in exchange for a reasonable prospect of 
success. The English and Russians speedily per- 
ceived the trend of the German plans, and, as the 
Baghdad Railway added mile after mile in the 
mountains of the Caucasus and the sentiment in 
favor of Persian independence grew more and 
more outspoken, they realized the necessity of 
some action. They therefore sent a commission 
to study the situation, who reported, with grave 
irony, that the Persians were incapable of self- 
government, and suggested that England and 
Russia should interfere to prevent the longer 
continuance of the existing state of anarchy. In 
1907, England and Russia acted in accordance 
with the commission's recommendations, and 
two zones of influence were demarcated, one in 
the north in which Russia should predominate, 
and the second in the south along the Gulf where 
England was to be supreme, and a neutral zone 
between them whose affairs the Persians were to 
be allowed to direct with such interference as 
England and Russia combined might see fit to 
interpose. 

The Powers could certainly have taken no 
step which would have done more to strengthen 

135 




PAN-GERMANISM 

the German plans. The evident insult to the 
capacity of the Persians resulted in a national 
movement of the capable men in the country, 
who executed promptly, with German assist- 
ance, a cowp d'Stat in 1909, by which Persia was 
entirely reorganized, a constitution adopted, a 
new Shah chosen, and the administration and 
finances of the country put into the hands of 
foreigners, whose experience in government and 
in business was expected to teach the Persians 
how to conduct their own affairs, and, what was 
equally important, to put the new government 
on its feet financially. The most important of 
these officials was the Treasurer, an American 
named Shuster, whose energy, ability, and firm 
belief in the expediency and desirability of Per- 
sian independence, accomplished wonders. To be 
sure, Germany had not quite looked for the es- 
tablishment of a firm, well-organized, and really 
independent national state in Persia; there can 
be little doubt that she had expected to supplant 
England and Russia in Persia by means of an 
ostensible revolution; still, the creation of a 
Persian government, really strong enough to ex- 
clude Russia and England, would be almost as 
advantageous to her as the exercise of control 
herself. 

Progress in sowing the wind in Egypt and India 

136 



FIRST STEPS 

was also considerable. In both, to be sure, she 
found a native movement among the Mohamme- 
dans favoring Pan-Islam and the exclusion of for- 
eigners, and which was therefore anxious to put an 
end to English influence and administration. It 
seems to be exceedingly doubtful whether Ger- 
many ever contemplated anything more in Egypt 
and India than the creation of trouble for Eng- 
land. Certainly, any promises of actual assistance 
to the malcontents could hardly have carried 
weight. The knowledge, which she certainly did 
impart to the leaders, that forces were at work 
in Europe tending to undermine the English posi- 
tion, that there were European states who be- 
lieved England weak and who sympathized with 
the peoples she ruled, that before a not too dis- 
tant day England might be racked by the torment 
of a great war in Europe, all seemed to the Hindus 
too good to be true. It certainly meant that Eng- 
land would be unable to devote all her atten- 
tion to suppressing revolts in India, and that it 
behooved them to prepare themselves for the 
dawning of the day, when they might practically 
obtain their independence for the asking. This 
news put vitality into the movement of Pan- 
Islam. It is not beyond the bounds of prob- 
ability that German money was an important 
factor in this vitality, money which she probably 

137 



PAN-GERMANISM 

borrowed with characteristic nonchalance in 
London. 

By the year 1910, therefore, the work was well 
under way in all directions for the creation of 
Pan-Germanism. 



CHAPTER X 

THE SIGNIFICANT POSITION OP THE UNITED 

STATES 

ONCE the magnitude of Pan-Germanism 
dawned on the English and French diplo- 
mats, once they became aware of the lengths to 
which Germany was willing to go, they realized 
the necessity of strengthening their position, and 
therefore made overtures to the United States, 
which resulted, probably before the summer of 
the year 1897, in an understanding between the 
three countries. There seems to be no doubt 
whatever that no papers of any sort were signed, 
and that no pledges were given which circum- 
stances would not justify any one of the contract- 
ing parties in denying or possibly repudiating. 
Nevertheless, an understanding was reached that 
in case of a war begun by Germany or Austria for 
the purpose of executing Pan-Germanism, the 
United States would promptly declare in favor of 
England and France and would do her utmost to 
assist them. The mere fact that no open acknow- 
ledgment of this agreement was then made need 
not lessen its importance and significance. The 

139 



PAN-GERMANISM 

alliance, for it was nothing less, was based upon 
infinitely firmer ground than written words and 
sheets of parchment, than the promises of indi- 
viduals at that moment in oflSce in any one of the 
three countries; it found its efficient cause as well 
as the efficient reason for its continuance in the 
situation, geographical, economic, and political, 
of the contracting nations which made such an 
agreement mutually advantageous to them all. 
So long as this situation remains unchanged, there 
is little likelihood that the agreement will be 
altered, and there is no possibility whatever of 
its entire rejection by one of the three parties, 
least of all by the United States. 

The United States occupies a strategic position 
defensively strong, but offensively weak. She is 
beyond question invulnerable to the assaults of 
foreign fleets and armies. To be sure, her sea- 
coast is vast in extent and for the most part un- 
protected. It has been truly pointed out that the 
Japanese might successfully land an army upon 
the Pacific Coast, or the Germans land an army 
in New York or Boston practically without oppo- 
sition. Sed cui bono? The strategical and geo- 
graphical conditions of the country on either 
coast are such that a foreign army would occupy 
the ground it stood on and no more. The British 
discovered in the Revolutionary War that the 

140 



POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES 

occupation of New York, Boston, and Philadel- 
phia put them no nearer the military possession 
of the continent than they were before, and that 
marching through provinces was not subduing 
them. However seriously the capture of New 
York might cripple our commercial and railway 
interests, the diflficulty, even at its worst, could 
be easily overcome by shifting the centre of busi- 
ness for the time being to Chicago, and the pos- 
session of New York would certainly not permit 
a foreign army to conquer the country, even if it 
were possible for any nation to maintain an army 
so far from its real base of supplies in Europe. 
The possibility of invasion is made of no conse- 
quence by the simple fact that no foreign na- 
tion possesses any inducement for attempting so 
eminently hazardous an enterprise. The United 
States possesses literally nothing which any for- 
eign nation wants that force would be necessary 
to obtain, while, by making war upon the United 
States, she would certainly expose herself to anni- 
hilation at the hands of her enemies in Europe, 
who have patiently waited for decades in the hope 
that some one of them would commit so capital 
a blunder. But this very invulnerability of the 
United States prevents her from becoming a 
dominant or even an important factor in Euro- 
pean politics. If European nations cannot menace 

141 



PAN-GERMANISM 

her with armed reprisal or with wars for conquest, 
she is equally incapable of menacing them. The 
fact, which has been from her own standpoint 
heretofore an unmixed blessing, which has allowed 
her people to beat their swords into ploughshares 
and their spears into pruning hooks, becomes 
her greatest weakness, once she is filled with 
an ambition to play a part in the affairs of the 
world. 

Unpalatable as the fact may be, the interna- 
tional situation, the close balance of power be- 
tween the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente 
rather than the position of the United States has 
made her a factor in international politics. In- 
deed, if we would be truly accurate, we must ad- 
mit that the inter-relation of the various parts of 
the European situation, more even than its deli- 
cate balance, makes the United States a factor; 
for the complexity of the problems of no one 
group of states, whether in Europe, in the Middle 
East, or in the Far East, could possibly allow the 
United States to play a prominent part. In each, 
the natural antipathies counteract each other. 
Only the fact that every nation is anxious to 
maintain or win power or wealth in Europe and 
Africa and Asia makes the United States of any 
value to any of them. Indeed, it is only as Euro- 
pean questions become themselves factors in the 

142 



POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES 

larger problems of India, Morocco, and the Medi- 
terranean that they can concern the United States 
at all. As soon as European politics became world 
politics and Asiatic and A Trican problems became 
European, the United States began to be a factor 
in their solution. She has, to be sure, no vital 
stake in any one of these fields. She cannot, even 
if she would, risk in war the same stake European 
nations do, her independence; the Atlantic on 
the one side, the Pacific on the other, defend her 
more completely than could fleets and coalitions. 
Nothing short of the creation of world politics by 
other nations could make the position of the 
United States of consequence at all. The most 
vital fact, however, about the European situation 
is that no nation possesses the same natural allies 
in all parts of the world. England and France are 
one in opposing the extension of German author- 
ity in Europe; but nothing short of their extreme 
danger in the Mediterranean at the time of the 
Crimean War and the perils to which they have 
been exposed in Europe since the Franco-Prussian 
War has buried the enmity resulting from deadly 
strife in America and, especially, in India. Russia 
is the firm ally of both England and France in 
Europe; she is their deadliest foe in the Black 
Sea, in Persia, India, and China; yet, to oppose 
Germany, we see Russia and England amicably 

143 



PAN-GERMANISM 

enough uniting in the Near East. Germany must 
secure French and English aid to defend herself 
permanently against Russia on the east, but finds 
her natural allies against Russia her greatest 
competitors in trade, and the most determined 
opponents to her expansion on the west. Never- 
theless, at the very moment that we find Germany 
and England ready to spring at each other's 
throats in Europe, we see them guarding the rail- 
way to Pekin together and acting in concert about 
the Chinese loans. 

The variety of the interests of these nations 
makes it impossible for them permanently or 
entirely to trust or distrust each other. England, 
who needs Russia's aid in Europe in the Near 
East, cannot act too determinedly in opposition 
to Russian advance in Afghanistan and Manchu- 
ria. Germany, whose quarrels with Hapsburg and 
the Pope fill the history of the Middle Ages, must 
have their assistance to protect herself in Europe. 
In all this the United States has unquestionably 
no part. Not her strategic position, not her mili- 
tary strength, but her economic position makes 
her an ally particularly indispensable to England 
and France. Not their economic position but her 
desire for colonies, her ambition to play a part 
in the politics of the world, makes an alliance 
with England and France indispensable to the 

144 



POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES 

United States. But she can enter world politics 
only with the consent of European nations. 

The economic position of the United States in 
the modern world is commanding. Her area is so 
vast and its productivity so great, her natural re- 
sources so nearly unlimited and so great in variety, 
that scarcely a country in the world, one had al- 
most said no continent in the world, can hope to 
rival her. While her population is not yet numer- 
ous enough to make her dangerous, it is none the 
less amply sufficient to render her in potential 
military strength one of the greatest of civilized 
countries. She possesses, in fact, precisely what 
England and France lack — almost inexhaustible 
natural resources; arable land almost without 
limit; food sufficient to feed all Europe; great de- 
posits of gold, copper, iron, silver, coal; great sup- 
plies of cotton sufficient for the Lancashire cotton 
mills; in short, she possesses the very resources 
needed to make the economic position of England 
and France fairly impregnable. Allied with her, 
they could not be starved into submission nor 
bankrupted by the lack of materials to keep their 
looms running. In addition, she possesses the 
second greatest steel manufactory in the world, 
which owns the patents and secret processes 
upon which Bessemer steel depends, a product 
surpassed for war materials only by the Krupp 

145 



PAN-GERMANISM 

steel. The width of the Atlantic effectively pre- 
vents any interference by European Powers with 
the continuance in time of war of her agricultural 
and industrial activities. Whatever happens in 
Europe, she can continue to produce the raw ma- 
terials and finished products they need, and, what 
is more important, she will furnish them in time 
of war a huge market for the sale of such manu- 
factured goods as they can continue to make. 

The United States, furthermore, is the third 
financial power in the world. Not only is her 
wealth vast, not only is her surplus capital con- 
siderable, but the organization of business has, 
most fortunately from the point of view of inter- 
national politics, concentrated the control of the 
available capital for investment in the hands of 
comparatively few men. The trusts, the banks, 
and the insurance companies have made available 
for investment huge sums, only less in size than 
those controlled in London and Paris. It is highly 
essential that Germany should not be allowed 
to establish relations with any such capital. It 
would provide her with precisely that financial 
backing which she needs. At all costs the United 
States and Germany must be kept apart. England, 
too, is anxious to turn this capital into her own 
colonies, and is willing and anxious to invest her 
capital in the United States, for both would gain 

146 



POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES 

from this mutual dependence, and each would 
furnish the other fields for investment on whose 
reliability they could both depend. The English 
are naturally anxious to shift their investments 
from Germany to some country where they will 
not be exposed to destruction by war or to con- 
fiscation based upon war as an excuse. 

Fortunately for England and France, the 
United States, whose economic assistance is posi- 
tively imperative for them, finds their assistance 
equally imperative. In the first place, the United 
States depends upon the English merchant ma- 
rine to carry her huge volume of exports, and, 
should she not be able to use it, would suffer ser- 
iously, even if the inability to export continued 
only a few weeks. Again, a market as certain and 
as large as that of England and France for her 
raw materials and food is absolutely essential to 
her, and the outbreak of a war, which might close 
those markets to her, would precipitate unques- 
tionably a financial crisis, whose results could not 
fail to equal in destructiveness the effect upon 
private individuals of a great war. The United 
States has come to realize, as have other nations, 
that there are many ways in which a modern 
country can be forced to suffer which are as deadly 
and, in many cases, more deadly than invasion. 
Furthermore, she needs a market in England and 

147 



PAN-GERMANISM 

France for her own manufactured goods, and has 
grown to depend upon receiving from them in 
return many varieties of manufactured goods. 
She simply cannot afford to take any chances of 
losing her markets in those two countries, nor has 
she ceased to hope for privileges of some sort in 
the English and French dependencies, which other 
nations do not have, and which, should worst 
come to worst, she could undoubtedly obtain 
from them as the price of her continued assistance. 
It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that the pro- 
sperity of the United States so much depends 
upon the preservation of her relations with Eng- 
land and France that in time of war only an alli- 
ance with them would save her from almost 
certain bankruptcy. 

England and France, however, expect to retain 
the alliance by permitting her to fulfill her ambi- 
tions for control of the Gulf of Mexico. Ever 
since the days when Louisiana was first purchased, 
the men of the Mississippi Valley have dreamed 
of the extension of the sway of the United States 
over Central America and the Gulf. Aaron Burr's 
expedition aimed probably at the creation of an 
empire out of the Mississippi Valley and Mexico. 
The Mexican War was certainly fought in the 
expectation that valuable territory in the Gulf 

might be acquired into which slaves might profit- 

148 



POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES 

ably be carried. When the war failed, a filibuster- 
ing expedition led by Walker, with connivance of 
the authorities at Washington, was intended to 
secure for the United States possession of one or 
more of the Central American countries. There 
was also the scheme, in whose existence the North 
believed previous to the war, for the conquest of 
the whole Gulf of Mexico and the creation there 
of a slaveocracy whose wealth and independence 
could easily be assured by the production of 
cotton, sugar, and tobacco. All these schemes met 
a determined resistance and interference from 
England and France which invariably proved 
decisive. Nor could the United States hope to 
take possession of lands separated from her coast 
by water, with which she could communicate 
only by sea, so long as the English fleet controlled 
the seas and she herself possessed no fleet at all. 
The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was intended to 
prevent the acquisition of influence in Central 
America by the United States without England's 
consent, and mention was specifically made of a 
canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The inter- 
ference of Germany in Venezuela, the evident 
fact that the concentration of the English fleet in 
the Channel would make it impossible to keep a 
sizable fleet in the Gulf of Mexico, the absolute 
necessity from many points of view of preventing 

149 



PAN-GERMANISM 

the acquisition by Germany of land in South or 
Central America, removed the objections Eng- 
land and France had hitherto possessed to the 
extension of the influence of the United States in 
the Western hemisphere. 

There was, furthermore, a likelihood that Ger- 
many would in some way attempt the annexation 
of the oldest of European colonial empires, held 
at this time by one of the weakest and most deca- 
dent of European states. The Spanish colonies in 
the Gulf of Mexico and in the Philippine Islands 
possessed not only commercial but strategic im- 
portance. The wealth of Cuba and Porto Rico 
was proverbial, the products of the Philippines 
considerable, and, though not altogether suitable 
for colonization, they would afford Germany un- 
deniable opportunity for expansion. Moreover, 
Cuba in the hands of Germany would rob Jamaica 
of all naval importance and might actually permit 
Germany to overrun the whole Gulf. The Philip- 
pines as a matter of fact controlled one whole 
side of the China Sea and contained valuable sea- 
ports, where a naval base could be established, 
safe from assault by the Chinese or European 
nations. The islands were thus ideally fitted to 
become Germany's base of operations in the Far 
East. To allow such places to fall into her hands 
might entail consequences whose far-reaching 

150 



POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES 

effect no statesman could possibly imagine. Nor 
was there the slightest guarantee that by an un- 
provoked assault Germany would not attempt to 
take possession. At the same time, the general 
European situation and the position of Spain in 
the Mediterranean made it impossible for Eng- 
land or France to undertake a war with her, with- 
out setting fire to a train of circumstances whose 
eventual results might be even more fatal than 
those they were attempting to prevent. The colo- 
nial aspirations of the United States, her anxiety 
to share in the opening of China to European 
enterprise, her traditional hope of securing con- 
trol of Cuba, all pointed to her as the natural 
guardian of the interests of the coalition in the 
Gulf of Mexico and in the Far East. Whether or 
not it is true, as some assert, — a view to which 
certain events lend probability, — that the Span- 
ish-American War was created in order to permit 
the United States to take possession of Spain's 
colonial dominion, certainly such was the result 
of that war. To be sure, the relations between 
Spain and the United States were already strained ; 
popular sentiment was aroused by the conditions 
in Cuba, and, if the war was "created," it was not 
a diflBcult task. Certainly, Germany and her allies 
suspected that such was the purpose of the war, 
and attempted to secure a general agreement in 

151 



PAN-GERMANISM 

Europe to interfere in Spain's favor. England, 
however, whether because she saw its advantage 
now the war was in existence, or because she had 
caused it to be begun, decisively vetoed the sug- 
gestion of interference, and her control of the sea 
made action without her cooperation impossible. 
The results of the war were all that could have 
been hoped for. The Triple Entente saw the Gulf 
of Mexico fall into friendly hands and the estab- 
lishment in the Far East of a friendly power in the 
strategic point of greatest consequence. From 
Germany's point of view, the results of the alliance 
between England, France, and the United States 
were exceedingly discouraging, and the aftermath 
of the war proved even more decisive than the 
war itself. The United States promptly undertook 
the peaceful penetration of Mexico and Central 
America. Large loans were made to the govern- 
ments and secured by a lien on the revenues; 
American capital rushed thither, and the number 
of enterprises financed or owned by Americans 
increased so rapidly that at the present day the 
United States, or its citizens, owns practically 
everything of importance in the Gulf, and is wait- 
ing only for a favorable opportunity to foreclose 
its mortgages. The possibility of German inter- 
ference has been reduced to nothing. The United 
States also proceeded, not improbably by agree- 

152 



POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES 

ment, to create a fleet large enough to maintain 
control of the Gulf of Mexico and, what was of 
more consequence, to maintain control of the 
Atlantic highway between Europe and America 
in case of European war. The English had come 
to realize the improbability that enough of their 
fleet could be spared to patrol the seas in the event 
of an attack upon their forces in the Channel 
or in the Mediterranean. Above all, the United 
States undertook to create in the Philippines a 
naval base of sufficient size and importance to 
permit the maintenance there of a fleet large 
enough to be a factor in the Pacific. England and 
France obviously could not spare enough ships to 
maintain a fleet in the Far East; Japan would not 
tolerate the presence of a Russian fleet in those 
waters; the United States was the only member of 
the coalition who could, consistent with her own 
safety or that of other nations, undertake the 
creation and maintenance of such a fleet in the 
Far East. She became, in fact, the offensive arm 
of the coalition in the Pacific, and promptly 
strengthened her position by annexing the islands 
between her shores and Asia available for settle- 
ment or coaling-stations. She must not only pre- 
pare the way for the further extension of the coali- 
tion's power in the Far East, but she must prevent 
the acquisition by Germany of colonies, whose 

153 



PAN-GERMANISM 

location or development would interfere with the 
control of Eastern commerce by herself and her 
allies. 

One more thing the United States undertook, 
which England and France had hitherto denied 
her permission to do, the digging of the Panama 
Canal. The canal would furnish the United States 
with a new waterway to the East, shorter than 
the route she had hitherto been forced to employ 
via Suez, and with a route which would literally 
put New York in actual number of miles nearer 
China, Australia, and New Zealand than was 
London. Thus to admit the United States to the 
trade of the Far East by a waterway exclusively 
in its control, England had not hitherto considered 
expedient. The creation of Pan-Germanism, the 
fear of an attack on the English route through the 
Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, the possibility 
of the closing of that route temporarily or perma- 
nently by some naval disaster, reconciled England 
to the creation of the Panama Canal, because she 
saw in that waterway a new military road which 
she could use to her own possessions in the Far 
East, and which the Atlantic Ocean would effect- 
ually keep out of the hands of Germany. To be 
sure, it would not be as short a road to India as 
that through the Mediterranean and Suez; but so 

far as Australia and New Zealand were concerned it 

154 



POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES 

would not be longer; and all such objections inevit- 
ably were reduced to insignificance by its incom- 
parable safety, so long as the English fleet could 
hold the seas at all. So long as the United States 
and England combined could maintain control of 
the Gulf of Mexico and of the islands in the Pacific, 
so long would this waterway be absolutely safe. 
If, then, Germany should succeed in executing the 
whole of her stupendous plan, England and her 
allies might still be able by means of the Panama 
Canal to contest with her the possession of the 
trade of the East. Especially would this be true 
if the United States should be able to maintain 
herself in the Philippines. Nor have the English 
lost sight of the incomparable importance of the 
Philippines for keeping Germany out of the Cele- 
bes. If Germany should move upon Holland, the 
coalition expects to take possession of the Celebes 
without further ceremony, and will then hold a 
position controlling the trade routes leading from 
India to China and Japan and to Europe in gen- 
eral, which would be as nearly impregnable as 
anything of the kind ever yet known in the world. 
The issues, therefore, with which the United 
States is actively concerned are vast; the import- 
ance of her adhesion to the side of England and 
France cannot be overestimated, and her possible 
part in the movements of the next two decades is 

155 



PAN-GERMANISM 

certainly one which ought to satisfy the most 
ambitious. She holds in the East already a posi- 
tion second only to that of England, and should 
the European nations succeed in their plans of 
final interference in China, the United States, as 
the offensive arm of the coalition, might be called 
upon for prompt action of the most aggressive sort. 
At the same time, after all has been said, it must 
be admitted that the United States is as yet only 
a potential factor in the international situation. 
Unless further aggression should be attempted 
in the Orient, or it should become necessary or 
expedient to change the nominal control over 
Mexico and Central America to actual possession, 
the United States will take no important share in 
hostilities, but will confine her efforts to the ex- 
ceedingly important work, both to her allies and 
to herself, of keeping open the Atlantic highway 
and of protecting the merchant marine of Eng- 
land. Nor need one underestimate the importance 
of this task, for, should she fail to do her share, 
destruction might result for all concerned. 



CHAPTER XI 

FIRST DEFEATS 

THE failure of their designs in South Africa 
and in South America turned German eyes to 
the northern part of the former continent, to the 
great dominion which the French possessed in 
Morocco. The strategic value of Morocco was 
undeniable, for it flanked the whole southern shore 
of the Mediterranean at the entrance opposite 
Gibraltar and extended far down the African 
coast. Together with Algeria and Tunis, it prac- 
tically gave the French the whole of Africa east 
of the Libyan Desert, north of the Congo and 
of the Sahara Desert. Of this vast domain Mo- 
rocco proper is one of the richest and most valu- 
able parts. It is larger in area than Germany. 
Its exports and imports are considerable, each 
amounting to about fifteen million dollars annu- 
ally. The climate is temperate, the soil fertile and 
varied, rich in minerals, and capable of almost 
indefinite development; the sparse population, 
amounting only to about five millions of people, 
most of them too barbarous and indolent either 
to use their country themselves or to oppose its 

157 



PAN-GERMANISM 

use by some one else, would afford Germany an 
admirable field for colonization and the develop- 
ment of a market. As has already been said, the 
Germans had attempted to rouse the natives 
against the French, and, more especially in the 
southern part of Morocco, had attained conspicu- 
ous success. The actual outbreak, however, re- 
sulting from their influence was crushed with 
exceeding dispatch by the French, and the Ger- 
mans began to be aware that the peaceful pene- 
tration of Morocco with French consent was more 
than improbable. In the summer of 1911, there- 
fore, the Germans ventured upon a decisive step, 
and sent the warship Panther to anchor in the 
port of Agadir with the clear intention of interfer- 
ing somehow in the state of affairs in Morocco. 
The port chosen for this demonstration seemed, 
despite rather conflicting testimony, to possess 
great possibilities as a naval station; the hinter- 
land was reputed to be exceedingly rich in miner- 
als; the river, which enters the sea at this point, 
was of considerable size and drained a very fertile 
district. Furthermore, Agadir was far enough re- 
moved from Fez and the seat of French authority 
to make it possible for the Germans to hold it 
without rousing too much apprehension in the 
minds of the French of clashes in the future. The 
excuse for the German interference oflScially put 

158 



FIRST DEFEATS 

forward — the protection of the Europeans at 
Agadu* — was an obvious pretext too slim to de- 
ceive any one. The number of Europeans in that 
part of Morocco was exceedingly few, and they 
were in absolutely no danger. The really logical 
ground which Germany took was that she could 
not recognize the validity of an agreement, per- 
mitting the French and English to monopolize 
Morocco, to which she had not been a party. She 
denied, in fact, the right of other European nations 
to make with each other contracts and agreements, 
concerning the disposition of the world in general, 
which should be binding upon any but themselves. 
She demanded, therefore, a new agreement which 
should recognize her obvious interests and to 
which she should be a party. As a possible equiva- 
lent, in case England and France should be un- 
willing to make such dispositions in Morocco as 
her interests made desirable, she demanded the 
cession to her by France of a' district adjoining the 
small territory she already possessed at Kamerun. 
This district was a part of the French Congo, the 
southernmost part nearest the river, and its value 
far exceeded its area. In fact, it did in all proba- 
bility equal in actual value at the moment the 
whole German colonial empire. In addition, it 
flanked the Congo, and also was situated adjacent 
to the little strip of territory along the river by 

159 



PAN-GERMANISM 

which Belgium obtained access to her great do- 
main in the Congo valley. The strategic value of 
the spot was as undeniable as its commercial im- 
portance. Perhaps Germany might succeed in 
cutting off the Belgians from the sea and compel 
them either to pay tolls or cede a portion of their 
estate in order to regain access to it. 

The movement upon Morocco had a secret pur- 
pose quite as important as any other of its varied 
aspects. The Germans had long known of the 
existence of a secret understanding between Eng- 
land and France, but they had not been able to 
discover its exact terms, and it was of the utmost 
consequence for them to know whether or not the 
arrangement was solely defensive and applied to 
aggressive movements against either country in 
Europe, whether the agreement promised either 
country the other's assistance in case either should 
take the offensive, or whether it extended as an 
offensive and defensive alliance to the protec- 
tion of both French and English interests in every 
part of the world. To discover, therefore, its pre- 
cise limitations, the Germans proposed to raise 
an issue with France, whom they did not fear, 
which would promptly bring to the fore the ques- 
tion whether England should aid France in ob- 
taining a decision favorable to her upon an issue in 
which England had no direct interest. Whatever 

160 



FIRST DEFEATS 

happened, the Germans could scarcely fail to 
obtain some valuable indications of the strength 
and extent of the Anglo-French Entente, and 
might even succeed in compelling one or the other 
of them publicly to acknowledge its existence and 
perhaps its terms. There was, therefore, much 
that Germany might gain from this aggressive 
movement at Agadir, and she did not seem to be 
greatly in danger of losing anything. 

The event was eminently successful in drawing 
from England and France an acknowledgment of 
their hitherto secret understanding and an explicit 
statement of its extent. The English evidently 
considered that it amply covered the present case, 
which made clear to the Germans that the arrange- 
ment was by no means purely defensive, and that 
it certainly did not confine itself to encroach- 
ments upon the contracting countries in northern 
Europe, — information of the utmost importance. 
Supported thus by England and by the enthusi- 
asm of the French people, the French Ministry 
forced the issue upon Germany and practically 
presented to the latter the alternative of receding 
from her demands or of undertaking war. In 
Germany the popular feeling in favor of war ran 
high, and even the best and coolest advisers of the 
Emperor seem to have counseled the undertak- 
ing of at least a demonstration in force upon the 

161 



PAN-GERMANISM 

French frontier, more, perhaps, with the notion of 
discovering the possible rapidity with which the 
French army could be mobilized than with any 
intention of fighting. Whether the Imperial ad- 
visers merely intended to prepare for all event- 
ualities or were willing to yield to popular and 
military pressure and declare war, the Government 
certainly attempted to procure in Berlin the ready 
money necessary to finance the mobilization of the 
army. There then became evident the fact which 
probably astonished the Germans as much as it 
did every one else in the world outside of the few 
men in London and Paris who were responsible 
for it. It seems that German business was being 
transacted upon capital borrowed abroad, and 
that the German merchants had so extended their 
borrowing operations that more than ninety per 
cent of the current business transactions depended 
upon call loans or time loans secured in London 
and Paris. The moment the international situa- 
tion became tense, a concerted movement was 
undertaken by the few men who controlled finan- 
cial movements in those capitals for the recall 
of these loans. The result was as astonishing 
and as disastrous as it was intended to be. The 
ready cash in Germany was promptly moved out 
of the country, and many merchants found them- 
selves compelled to sell securities to meet their 

16^ 



FIRST DEFEATS 

pressing obligations. Not only, therefore, was the 
German nation for the moment seriously strained 
for gold, but the sale of securities was so consid- 
erable as to assume the proportions of a financial 
panic. The banks in Germany were on the verge 
of being compelled to suspend specie payments 
and were many of them almost bankrupt. There 
was no money to be had in Germany with which 
to begin the war. The Government, with unheard- 
of effrontery, appealed for loans to the great 
French and English banking houses, depending 
obviously upon the bankers' greed being stronger 
than their patriotism. The financial kings 
promptly informed the Emperor that they would 
be only too glad to furnish him such sums as he 
might require in exchange for proper securities 
and an engagement in his own handwriting not to 
use the loan for military purposes. The latter 
condition being obviously out of the question, the 
Emperor appealed to the American financiers and 
received from them a reply substantially the same. 
Thus unexpectedly was revealed the real financial 
strength of England and France and the value of 
the alliance with the United States. Germany had 
been defeated, for her enemies had it in their 
power to prevent her even from taking the field. 
Surely no defeat could have been more crushing or 
more humiliating. 

163 



PAN-GERMANISM 

The Germans made the best possible out of a 
bad business. They secured after long negotiations 
the addition of some territory to Kamerun, but 
they were compelled to agree to the French con- 
trol of Morocco, to recognize, moreover, a control 
far more considerable and exclusive than before 
and which placed in the hands of France much 
more authority in administration. Subsequently, 
France came to terms with Spain, who had shown 
a good deal of uneasiness in regard to the changed 
conditions in Morocco, and whose Premier had 
officially made statements, regarding the deter- 
mination of Spain to protect her interests in 
Africa, which were little short of defiance. That 
Spain was animated in this by direct suggestions 
from Berlin seemed eminently probable, and, 
even if it were not so, and she was acting purely 
upon her own initiative and in her own interests, 
it was not expedient to allow her to continue dis- 
satisfied at this juncture. France and England, 
therefore, took pains thoroughly to pacify the 
Spaniard. 

The victory in Morocco, the clear evidence that 
Germany's financial situation made war impos- 
sible for the moment, suggested to the Triple 
Entente the expediency of action in Persia, where 
matters were progressing in a direction favorable 

to Germany's designs, whether or not they were 

164 



FIRST DEFEATS 

the result of her suggestion. The strategic posi- 
tion of Persia is of great significance. Her terri- 
tory marches with the boundaries of Asia Minor 
and flanks the Baghdad Railway and the rich 
district of the Tigris and Euphrates upon which 
England has long had designs. It controls the 
northern coast of the Persian Gulf, the coast road 
to India, the most important harbors, and, from a 
military point of view, is absolutely essential to 
the safety of the English in India. On the other 
hand, the roads to the Black and Caspian Seas 
from India, the Persian Gulf, and southwestern 
Asia all pass through Persia, whose condition 
becomes therefore a matter of the utmost conse- 
quence to Russia. The railway has not yet pene- 
trated this section of the world, and the old cara- 
van routes are still of great commercial value. It 
is obvious that Persia is of vital importance to 
England and to Russia, neither of whom is will- 
ing to allow the other exclusive possession, and 
neither of whom can permit that territory to fall 
into the hands of people unwilling to recognize 
their interests. While less dangerous than pos- 
session by Germany, the creation in Persia of an 
independent state, with an eflficient centralized 
government maintained by Persians in the inter- 
ests of Persia, proclaiming as its chief raison 
(Tetre the exclusion of foreigners and the emanci- 

165 



PAN-GERMANISM 

pation of Persia at the earliest possible moment 
from the financial shackles binding her to Eng- 
land and Russia, would be, from every point of 
view, quite as objectionable to the latter nations 
as any contingency they could imagine. The 
Shah had been continued upon the throne, the 
new constitution accepted by them because they 
had not expected the new government to be very 
different from the old; but the ability of Mr. 
Shuster, the Treasurer, the integrity and energy 
of his assistants, their evident intention to admin- 
ister the state solely in the interests of Persia, and, 
above all, the enthusiastic response from the 
Persians, proved both to the English and the 
Russians that a state was in process of formation 
whose strength was growing daily and whose 
determination to accede to no more demands 
from them grew firmer month by month. Such a 
Persia might effectively stand in the way of their 
important interests. Moreover, neither of them 
considered the alternative for Persia to lie between 
her practical ownership by some European nation 
and her actual independence. The English feared, 
with probably good reason, that their recognition 
of the new state, followed by the withdrawal of 
their representatives, publicly or secretly, would 
be simply the signal for the absorption of Persia 
and the complete destruction of the new govern- 

166 



FIRST DEFEATS 

ment by Russia or by Germany. The same appre- 
hensions were felt at St. Petersburg. Both Russia 
and England, therefore, agreed that, from the 
point of view of Persia herself, it would be better 
in the long run for them to retain possession than 
to permit the longer continuance of a state of 
affairs, which might, in a few years, make Persia 
the battle-ground of the two coalitions, with 
results to the Persians which could easily be 
imagined. Naturally, they did not expect the 
Persians to accept this view of the situation, and 
realized that the use of force would be indispens- 
able. 

A casus belli was easily found and could have 
been as easily created. Every step taken by the 
new Persian government was a tacit, if not an 
open, nullification of the treaty relations in exist- 
ence between Persia and the two countries. Mr. 
Shuster and his administrators, and, in the main, 
the more efficient and able of the Persians, were 
ejected from office, and the old, inefficient, cor- 
rupt administration was restored, in fact if not 
in name. The result upon politics in the Near 
East was a defeat for Germany. As in the case 
of Morocco, her interference resulted only in 
strengthening the hold her enemies already pos- 
sessed. Certainly, for the moment at any rate, 
the Baghdad Railway was outflanked and the 

167 



PAN-GERMANISM 

possible extension of the German commercial 
route to the rich markets of the East was ren- 
dered for the time being highly improbable. 
Until some considerable change takes place, the 
commercial value of the Baghdad Railway will 
be confined to the possibility of developing the 
district of Asia Minor which it traverses. 

The danger of ferment in Egypt among the 
native population and the military weakness of 
the English in that country did not escape the 
Ministry in London. Accordingly they sent to 
Egypt England's ablest soldier, Lord Kitchener. 
His mission was to improve the military disposi- 
tions of the force already available and the prepa- 
ration of adequate plans for efficient defense. For 
the nonce, however, his important work was con- 
fined to the counteracting of the effects produced 
in the natives' minds by the German agents. To 
the educated and the officials, he was to make 
clear the undoubted fact that for them the alter- 
native was, not the continuance of the present 
nominal relations between them and England, 
which left in their own hands a very extensive 
authority in local affairs, or their complete inde- 
pendence from interference by any one, but 
between the continuance of the status quo and 
their annexation by some member of the Triple 
Alliance, who would be forced by the exigencies 

168 



FIRST DEFEATS 

of military occupation, or by the necessities of 
the defense, to impose upon Egypt a good deal 
severer a rSgime than the English ever intended 
to create. For them to continue schemes for the 
expulsion of the English would simply mean that 
they were exposing themselves to the tender 
mercies of the Triple Alliance. The strategic 
position of Egypt, the extraordinary fertility of 
the Nile Valley and its great exports of cotton 
and grain, the existence of the Suez Canal, all 
made it impossible for Egypt to be governed solely 
in the interest of the Egyptians. The rest of the 
world was too intimately affected by conditions 
in Egypt to permit the Egyptians to disregard 
their claims. That such circumstances as these 
would mean nothing to the bulk of the population 
was only too apparent. Lord Kitchener, there- 
fore, inaugurated a series of enlightened judicial 
and agricultural reforms, intended to relieve the 
pressure of the Government upon the people 
themselves, and thus in an exceedingly practical 
manner remove the only possible grievances 
which would appear vital to the great bulk of the 
population. According to apparently trustworthy 
reports, he has succeeded to a remarkable degree 
in rousing the enthusiasm of the fellaheen for 
English rule. He has certainly endeared himself 
to the population, and secured over them a per- 

169 



PAN-GERMANISM 

sonal influence which may conceivably be a fac- 
tor of importance at no distant date in the des- 
tinies of empire. 

Another great diplomatic victory seems to have 
been won by the English in India. The approach- 
ing coronation of George V as Emperor of India 
made possible the assemblage at Delhi of all the 
potentates of India and allied states. Their con- 
junction at one moment might conceivably result 
in the completion of plans for concerted revolt 
against the English, if any such were on foot, 
whether due to German, Russian, or native influ- 
ence, but their presence might also be utilized 
for the execution of a diplomatic cowp of the very 
first consequence. It would depend, however, for 
its success upon the presence of the King. No 
English sovereign had ever set foot in India, and 
it was considered that the King would certainly 
expose himself to assassination by undertaking to 
be crowned in person at the approaching Durbar 
at Christmas, 1911. At the same time, unless the 
information regarding the state of affairs in India 
was entirely wrong, the danger of an attack would 
be confined solely to his being shot or destroyed 
by a bomb from the crowd during some public 
ceremony. The stake for which to play was un- 
doubtedly great, but the Ministers were not in 
favor of the King's assuming the necessary risks. 

170 



FIRST DEFEATS 

George, however, displayed a wholly admirable 
courage and an unexpected firmness of decision 
by insisting upon undertaking the difficult task. 
His presence in India, his coronation and safe re- 
turn would be the most dramatic and conclusive 
possible refutation of the tales so rife in Europe 
about the disloyalty of the Hindus and the pre- 
carious condition of England in India. The event 
more than justified the expectations. The King 
rode through the streets as he might have ridden 
through London; he sat alone with the Queen 
upon a great throne, fully exposed to thousands 
of people; he sat again alone with the Queen, with 
no guards in sight, upon a parapet near the road 
down which passed a great stream of Hindus of 
all conditions. The opportunities for his assas- 
sination were many. More than once the rumor 
spread that he had been killed. The tension dur- 
ing his stay was certainly extreme. But nothing 
happened. The moral effect of the Durbar in 
India and in Europe was great. 

The real purpose, however, of the King's pre- 
sence in India was far otherwise than the mere 
demonstration that he could be there for some 
weeks without being shot. He undertook the 
extremely difficult task of explaining by word of 
mouth to the Indian potentates the intricacies of 
the international situation and their practical 

171 



PAN-GERMANISM 

relation to India. Coming from him by word of 
mouth such representations could not fail to have 
weight. They would certainly have never been 
believed had the rulers learned them from any 
subordinate, however exalted in station. Besides, 
there can be little question that the King con- 
fided to them many things which it is not con- 
sidered wise that most men should know. Un- 
doubtedly, he explained to them the fact that the 
alternative for the Hindus, as it is for the Egypt- 
ians and the Persians, is not actual independ- 
ence from English rule, but a choice between the 
rule of England, Russia, or Germany. He can 
have had no great difficulty in demonstrating 
the honesty and excellence of English adminis- 
tration, and the great moderation of the English 
Government in never spending outside India a 
penny of the money collected in India; that the 
only benefit England has ever received directly 
has been the legitimate profits of trade; that 
Russia or Germany would offer more favorable 
terms is not likely; that the English were more 
than ready to meet the reasonable demands of 
the Hindus halfway; and that the English would 
consider reasonable anything which did not in- 
volve the loss of their trading monopoly or the 
weakening of the defensive strength of India 
against Russia and Germany. Naturally, these 

172 



FIRST DEFEATS 

are purely conjectures of what the King must 
have said. The results are also purely conjec- 
tural, but certainly any statement at all of the 
realities of the situation cannot fail to have been 
convincing. It is hard for an impartial observer to 
see any possible advantage to the Hindu of an 
exchange of rulers. 

The year 1911, therefore, was one of pretty 
conspicuous success in all directions for England 
and France. Everywhere they seemed to have 
successfully met Germany, and everywhere to 
have disproved her prophecy that their colonial 
empires would fall to pieces of their own weight. 
However real the weakness might be, however 
possible the success of Germany's schemes, the 
weakness certainly was not apparent, and the 
probability of Germany's success did not seem 
immediate. 



CHAPTER XII 

VICTORY FROM DEFEAT: THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

THE English and the French were by no means 
satisfied with the character of the measures 
which they had undertaken for thwarting the 
schemes of the Triple Alliance.^ Indeed, they had 
merely succeeded in holding their own, had in no 
sense placed any barrier in the way of the execu- 
tion of Pan-Germanism, nor could they do so by 
such measures as they had previously espoused. 
Something structural was necessary, basic, fun- 
damental in character, going to the root of the 
German scheme, which they very well realized 
was not in the least touched by their successes in 
Persia and Morocco. It was clear that Italy was 
for many reasons the least ardent member of the 
Triple Alliance and had the least to gain from the 
success of Pan-Germanism. Her hatred of Austria 
was still vigorous, and the necessary possession 
by Austria of the Balkans, her inevitable growth 
in naval power, the obvious advantage to the 
coalition of her securing control of the Adriatic 

* Individual sentences in chapters xii and xiii and the conclud- 
ing paragraphs of chapter xiii have been taken from the author's 
article in the Forum for December, 1912. 

174 



THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

and the Mgean, could not fail to rouse in the 
minds of the Italians certain eminently natural 
apprehensions. To strengthen Austria along the 
Illyrian coast meant to increase her strength in 
that very quarter least acceptable to Italy, ^ for 
Trieste could not fail to become a rival of Ven- 
ice, and the increase of Austrian power in the 
Adriatic would necessarily interfere with Italy's 
ambitions to control the whole commerce of that 
sea. Nor was control of the Adriatic less essen- 
tial to her as an outlet for the commerce of the 
Po Valley than it was for Austria. To say that 
Italy could ship her goods to the western seaports 
along the Mediterranean, could easily be met by 
saying that Austria could also ship her goods by 
rail wherever she wished. Moreover, Italy had 
been steadily penetrating the eastern shores of 
the Adriatic by the familiar peaceful methods of 
loans and investments, and had already large 
interests in Albania, Scutari, and Epirus, whose 
proximity to Italy made her interest in them 
natural. Nor could the fact that the present 
Queen of Italy is a Montenegrin princess fail to 
rouse concern at Rome for the future of that 

* "Our Eastern frontiers, I said [Crispi speaking to Bismarck], 
are extremely exposed, and should Austria's position on the Adriatic 
be strengthened, we should be held as in a vice, and our safety would 
be threatened." Dispatch from Crispi to the King of Italy, 1877. 
Memoirs of Francesco Crispi, ii, 64. Loudon, 1912. 

175 



PAN-GERMANISM 

country. There were, therefore, vital reasons for 
supposing that Italy was not bound to the Triple 
Alliance by chains of interest much stronger than 
those which made her position in it peculiar. The 
complete success of the scheme would not be 
likely to be thoroughly agreeable to the Italians 
because of the amount of strength it would neces- 
sarily give to their traditional foe. In addition, 
the existing dynasty was bound by strong ties of 
gratitude to France and England, without whose 
assistance the present kingdom of Italy could 
hardly have been created. Italy's interests would 
normally point in the same direction where her 
natural sympathies might be assumed to lie. 

Her ambitions were well known to England and 
France. As in Germany and Austria, the uni- 
fication of the country, the development of its 
resources, the benefits of centralized government, 
had resulted in an increase in the population and 
in production, which required colonies or markets 
to permit the continuance of national growth at 
its present rate. Like Germany, too, Italy found 
herself a debtor country, with heavy interest 
charges to meet, with the economic conditions 
unfavorable, and, consequently, with a national 
budget constantly in arrears. In one way and an- 
other, she had acquired along the Red Sea ter- 
ritories, large in area, limited in resources, with 

176 



THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

a tiny nomadic population, and a climate and soil 
unsuited for colonization. These colonies had 
already cost her money out of all comparison to 
their value. She had long had designs upon the 
great district lying between the French domain 
in Tunis and the English boundary in Egypt, a 
vast area some four hundred thousand square 
miles in extent, sparsely populated, and in nearly 
every way admirably adapted to her needs. 
Unquestionably, the land was exceedingly fertile, 
for it had been perhaps the richest province of 
ancient Rome, and from its revenues innumerable 
governors had grown rich. The fact that the pop- 
ulation was scanty and the products small made it 
especially desirable as a field for development by 
Italian capital and labor. Indeed, the statesmen 
anticipated that the revenue from the customs, plus 
the indirect results of its trade with Italy herself, 
would not improbably suffice to produce a credit 
balance in the national exchequer. Long before the 
actual unification of Italy, the House of Savoy had 
made known to England and France its desires to 
annex this province, and had received from them 
at various times more or less vague promises to re- 
spect her claims to it or to further her designs upon 
it. It had, however, never been able to secure any 
more tangible evidences of their willingness to give 
it possession than vague oral diplomatic promises. 

177 



PAN-GERMANISM 

England and France, after studying carefully 
the situation in the Mediterranean, concluded 
from the fact of Italy's continued alliance with 
Germany and Austria and the certainty that 
Austria would claim, as her share of the plunder, 
the Balkans and the eastern coast of the Adriatic, 
that Italy's part could be nothing less, and was 
not improbably nothing more, than Tripoli. In 
any case, whatever she was promised, she would 
be compelled to wait for until the success of a 
scheme whose execution was barely begun and 
which might not succeed at all. They, therefore, 
approached Italy, offered to insure her possession 
of Tripoli at once without fighting, without ex- 
pense, and without delay; if she should put for- 
ward some technical casus belli and should make a 
vigorous show of force in Tripoli, she could then 
be accorded possession by a treaty with the Turk, 
whose terms the three conspirators would arrange 
to their mutual satisfaction. Incidentally they 
would test the efficiency of the new Turkish army. 
She would, of course, in return desert the Triple 
Alliance, and form an alliance with them, whose 
strength would secure them all possession of every- 
thing they desired in the Mediterranean for some 
decades. The Italian navy added to the French 
navy would so far preponderate over the Aus- 
trian and Turkish fleets that the English Medi- 

178 



THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

terranean squadron could be practically with- 
drawn. Thus, without at all endangering the 
security of its control of the Mediterranean, the 
new alliance could make so immediate and consid- 
erable an increase of strength to its naval forces 
in the English Channel as to outnumber the Ger- 
man fleet for a good many years to come. Italy's 
position flanking the Adriatic would make Aus- 
tria's control of that sea improbable; the strength 
of the new alliance would make exceedingly diffi- 
cult any further accessions of territory by Austria 
in the Balkans; and thus Italy would be secure. 
By rendering impossible the effective use of the 
iEgean by Austria, the possibility of an attack by 
the latter's fleet from the rear of Malta upon the 
English lines of communication with Egypt and 
India, and upon the Italian lines of communica- 
tion with her new possession, would be eliminated; 
Sicily and Sardinia would strengthen the lines of 
advance already centering at Malta and would 
make the position of the allies in the western Med- 
iterranean literally impregnable. With Tripoli in 
Italy's hands, even the success of Germany and 
Austria in creating their proposed confederation, 
stretching from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf, 
would not be serious. Of course, while the Turk 
retained even nominal control of Tripoli, the fact 
that he was only too obviously falling deeper and 

179 



PAN-GERMANISM 

deeper into the clutches of Germany and Austria 
would make the occupation of Tripoli by a strong 
Turkish army, directed by Germany, an emi- 
nent possibility. Germany by such means might 
place a military force in a place very dangerous 
to Egypt and Tunis. Once Italy was fairly in 
possession, Germany could occupy Tripoli only 
by force, and Italy's active participation in the 
struggle would be assured. Tripoli would bind 
Italy to the Anglo-French alliance by the solid 
chains of self-interest. 

The splendor of the scheme was too striking 
not to impress the Italians; the Triple Alliance 
was broken; Italy advanced upon Tripoli to the 
consternation of Germany and Austria, who 
feared for a time that all was lost. Stimulated by 
the messages from Berlin and Vienna, aroused as 
well by the new national spirit in Turkey, the 
Government at Constantinople vigorously de- 
clared that it would fight to the last gasp before it 
would consent to the dismembering of the national 
domain. The obstinacy of the Young Turks them- 
selves, the assurances of support from Germany 
and Austria, made it impossible for England and 
France to give Italy possession of the new colony 
by the simple method of diplomatic and financial 
pressure. The Turk, indeed, publicly called upon 
them to redeem the pledges of support in the 

180 



THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

existing treaties and forced them oflScially to 
record their support of Italy. To every one's 
astonishment, it became clear that England and 
France were in no position to assist Italy openly. 
The hostility of the native races in Tripoli to the 
proposed arrangement was only too promptly 
shown; the flames of Moslem indignation ran high 
throughout North Africa, and for some weeks it 
seemed not improbable that a holy war against the 
Infidel might break out. Keen observers believed 
that a more open support of Italy by England or 
France would be the signal for the Jehad. Even 
to gain vastly more than either nation could pos- 
sibly lose by the delay of Italy's complete pos- 
session of Tripoli, such a contingency was not 
to be risked. In India, too, the Mohammedans, 
already excited by what they considered English 
treachery in crushing the new Mohammedan 
state in Persia, began actively to express their 
hostility and indignation at her treatment of the 
Sultan, the head of the Mohammedan religion. 
At all costs, England felt she must avoid giving 
further cause for offense. Italy, therefore, found 
herself committed to a war, which military critics 
agreed would be expensive, even if not prolonged, 
and whose result was by no means a foregone 
conclusion. The prospect was anything but allur- 
ing to a Ministry already tired of struggling with 

181 



PAN-GERMANISM 

an annual deficit, and was particularly bitter be- 
cause of the former expectation that possession 
of the new province would in one way or another 
lighten the financial burdens of the mother coun- 
try. Actual conquest by the sword would certainly 
so embitter the natives as to make the govern- 
ment of Tripoli expensive and difficult for years 
to come. The Italians, in short, had been placed 
by their friends in a very real dilemma, from which 
their friends were unable to extricate them and 
from which, indeed, it was doubtful whether the 
Italians could successfully extricate themselves 
without paying a price greater than they were 
able to afford. 

Under such circumstances, with such calami- 
ties expected and such hopes unfulfilled, the Ital- 
ians received from the Wilhelmstrasse whispered 
communications of cheering import. If Italy 
would return to the Triple Alliance, pointed out 
the Germans, her old friends would be able to 
secure for her without cost or difficulty the pos- 
session of Tripoli, and in time a great deal more. 
Indeed, said the Germans, the present dilemma 
in which Italy found herself proved conclusively 
the truth of the German assertions regarding the 
weakness of England and France. It proved no 
less astounding a proposition than that the Eng- 
lish control of the Mediterranean was a sham. 

182 



THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

Italy, in fact, if she would return to the Triple 
Alliance, might practically reverse the situation in 
the Mediterranean and bring Tripoli with her for 
nothing; the strategic positions on which England 
and France had based their defense of the Medi- 
terranean would be vastly weakened, if not de- 
stroyed; the naval force, which they had believed 
virtually preponderant, would be reduced to a 
bare equality which would make offensive move- 
ments impossible and render the success of defen- 
sive movements problematical; not a lira need be 
spent, not a life sacrificed to make the conquest 
of the Mediterranean an eminently feasible opera- 
tion and to strike a more deadly blow at English 
naval supremacy than it had suffered since the 
Seven Years' War. Such substantial and probable 
achievements would have been themselves con- 
sidered the worthy fruits of a hard-fought and 
costly war, and here they could actually be had 
for nothing! 

The English had already changed their naval 
arrangements in the Mediterranean, counting 
upon the presence of the Italians to neutralize 
the Austrian navy for the time being, and the 
French had not yet executed their part of the 
agreement by concentrating their fleet in the 
Mediterranean. For the moment, the Italian and 
Austrian fleets, while not strong enough to take 

183 



PAN-GERMANISM 

the offensive, would be amply strong enough to 
prevent any offensive movement by the English 
or French fleets. Nothing, therefore, could be 
done to interfere with Italy's execution of the 
manoeuvre. Once Tripoli was in Italy's hands, 
the Triple Alliance would be in a vastly more 
favorable position than it had occupied before the 
issue arose. They did not possess, to be sure, 
more power in the Adriatic than before, but they 
had secured what was infinitely more essential, 
a naval and military base from which to use it. 
The difficulty of using the Adriatic as a base had 
been that its exit could be without great difficulty 
controlled by an English fleet at Malta. From the 
ports on the Tripolitan coast, on the other hand, 
a flank attack could be directed upon the English 
communications with Suez which it would be 
extremely difficult to meet from Malta. Under 
cover of the war, which Italy had come to regard 
as so unfortunate, the new position, already com- 
manding, could be greatly strengthened. Inas- 
much as England and France had lent public 
countenance to the prosecution of the war and 
had formally declined to assist the Turk, neither 
would be able to interfere with the seizure by 
Italy of every island and strategic point in the 
eastern Mediterranean which acknowledged nom- 
inal sovereignty to the Sultan; thus the coveted 

184 



THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

Rhodes, the islands of the Mgean, controlling the 
channels to Constantinople, could all be occupied 
under cover of this very war, and the strategic 
control of the eastern Mediterranean thus secured 
without danger and without cost, which, under 
other circumstances, could not even have been 
attempted without precipitating a general Euro- 
pean war. In Tripoli, under cover of the war with 
the Turk, the allies could fortify the coast, create 
naval stations, build railways into the interior 
and along the frontiers, and thus equip a base of 
military operations in Africa from which they 
could threaten Suez and Tunis at the same time 
and with the same army. The execution of the 
schemes for the conquest of the Mediterranean 
itself had never been intended to precede the 
occupation of the Balkans and Turkey by the 
allies, but the chance was not one to be lost. 

The magnitude of the opportunity, the extraor- 
dinary prominence which it gave the Italians at 
the moment, was appreciated at Rome, and the 
Italian Government acted with promptitude. 
The results surpassed the most sanguine expecta- 
tions. The Italian navy bombarded a few ports, 
sank a number of Turkish vessels, purely to main- 
tain the fiction of war, and then seized island 
after island in the iEgean, announcing to the 
inhabitants that the occupation was no mere mili- 

185 



PAN-GERMANISM 

tary measure but would be permanent. So con- 
fident of success were the Italians. The existence 
of the new naval base in Tripoli, the possession of 
the strategic points of the eastern Mediterranean 
by a member of the Triple Alliance, snatched 
from England the entire control of the eastern 
Mediterranean and threw her back upon Malta, 
whose position was instantly changed from that 
of the central position of England's defensive 
chain to that of an outpost. Italy's change of 
front of course promptly suspended active hos- 
tilities between herself and Turkey, though the 
Turk obstinately refused to remove the new Turk- 
ish army from Tripoli. After all, from the point 
of view of the Alliance, this was not altogether 
regrettable, for it gave a tinge of reality to the 
military dispositions Italy proceeded to make 
with promptitude on the coast and along the 
caravan lines leading into Egypt. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

MEANWHILE, the Triple Alliance, thus 
reunited, proceeded with the complement- 
ary details of the scheme. The German, Aus- 
trian, and Italian naval programmes were at once 
enlarged, the proposed German fleet was made 
nearly equal in number to the proposed English 
Channel squadron and the Austro-Italian fleet 
was already the equal of the entire French battle 
fleet; an increased activity of building, therefore, 
was expected to give the allies in a couple of years 
something like equality, if not actual superiority, 
both in the Mediterranean and in the German 
Ocean. Indeed, the situation had been so changed 
as to make it diflScult for England and France to 
meet the crisis merely by a rearrangement of the 
existing forces. The chief reason for their desire to 
detach Italy from the Triple Alliance was inter- 
preted in Berlin to be their realization that they 
had practically reached the limit of their resources 
and could no longer continue to build at the same 
rate as before. To strengthen the Mediterranean 
fleet by an alliance with Italy would have enabled 

187 



PAN-GERMANISM 

them to increase the Channel squadron without 
additional expense. The coup d'etat in the Medi- 
terranean changed the whole naval situation by 
strengthening the position of the Triple Alliance 
in that sea, and rendered inadequate the previous 
dispositions of England and France. A large fleet, 
more naval stations, and very different equip- 
ment of certain stations would be necessary sat- 
isfactorily to meet the crisis. To strengthen the 
fleet in the Mediterranean meant the weaken- 
ing of the English fleet in the Atlantic and the 
considerable reduction of the number of vessels 
which Germany must build to change England's 
old predominance into something like equality. 
This, then, was the moment for which the allies 
had been waiting. There was now a fair chance of 
their creating within a reasonable time enough 
ships to compass that equality of armament which 
England had always declared would be so fatal 
to her welfare. The military dispositions of the 
allies, the facilities for prompt mobilization, the 
railway facilities along the Belgian and French 
and Russian frontiers, were all considered with a 
view to their adequacy for actual war. The work 
on the Baghdad Railway was pushed with the 
utmost energy; the little band of able men, whom 
Germany had so long kept in Constantinople, 
busied in reconstructing Turkey, were recalled to 

188 



AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

Europe. The German Emperor began, with his 
usual energy, a round of visits to all the sovereigns 
of whom anything was expected or from whom 
anything was feared. To them all he explained, 
no doubt, the great advantage just secured and 
made, by word of mouth, promises, assurances, 
and explanations, which could not have been 
entrusted to subordinates. Unquestionably, the 
energy of Wilhelm II, his persuasive powers, and 
his faith in this gigantic scheme have been of 
vital importance in securing the cooperation of 
Germany's present allies and in bringing their 
plans to their present state of completion. 

The English and French, astonished and alarmed 
at the unexpected turn of affairs, strained every 
nerve to meet it by preparations which should 
be more than adequate for any emergency. Both 
have felt, however, that to avow publicly the ex- 
tent of the danger would produce an unfavorable 
effect on English and French public opinion, 
either by sapping popular confidence in the na- 
tional strength, or, more probably, by causing a 
demand for instant war which it would be dijQScult 
to resist. In some way, without declaring imme- 
diate a danger which may after all be merely con- 
tingent, the people must be made to realize that 
a crisis is at hand of so serious a nature that it can 
be adequately met only by the immediate adop- 

189 



PAN-GERMANISM 

tion of the most extensive naval and military pre- 
parations either nation has yet undertaken. So 
extensive are the plans, so long is the time which 
will be required for their completion, so great will 
be the financial burden imposed upon the people, 
that the average individual, in nations which have 
systematically encouraged him to have opinions 
upon matters of national import, is more than 
likely to deem such plans justifiable only to avert 
an impending crisis, in which the very national 
existence would be at stake, and to demand at 
once financial sacrifices which he is likely to 
approve only when the danger is exceedingly tan- 
gible. The present condition, therefore, which the 
English and French Governments find it most 
difficult to meet, is the fact that the time and 
expense for what they believe to be the necessary 
preparations are in themselves proof to the aver- 
age man that the emergency is contingent rather 
than immediate. They are hampered, as the Ger- 
mans have always claimed they would be under 
such circumstances, by the difficulty of convincing 
the ordinary individual of the expediency of spend- 
ing as much money in order to postpone or avert 
a war as would seem to him necessary to prosecute 
it. To tell the public that the war is already going 
on, that it is being fought with every variety of 
weapon, except armies and navies, that England 

190 



AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

is really in danger, and at the same time to prove 
to him that the English navy largely outnumbers 
the navies of the Triple Alliance, is simply to de- 
monstrate the expediency of fighting now before 
the preparations of the Triple Alliance already 
announced destroy England's superiority. 

In England, too, the position of parties in the 
House of Commons is actually hampering the 
Government in its preparations to meet the crisis, 
as the Germans have always claimed it would. 
The Liberals, who are nominally in power, are 
absolutely dependent upon the support of the 
Irish Nationalists and of the Laborites. The for- 
mer group are exceedingly anxious to secure the 
final passage into law, without substantial amend- 
ment, of the Home Rule Bill just passed by the 
House of Commons. The most important clause of 
that bill provides for the payment out of the Im- 
perial Treasury to the new Irish Government of 
a subsidy annually sufficient in amount to pay for 
the construction of two or more battleships. The 
Irish Budget has so long shown an annual deficit, 
and it has so long been evident that the Irish 
people are paying more taxes than they can really 
afford, that the advocates of Home Rule know 
perfectly well that, without substantial assist- 
ance from England, Home Rule is impossible. 
The Irish people are incapable of paying their own 

191 



PAN-GERMANISM 

bills. But to secure such a subsidy at the mo- 
ment of moments when English naval supremacy 
is more nearly in danger than at any time in the 
last two centuries, when that amount of money 
annually expended might suffice to maintain 
England's supremacy, is, as they well know, ex- 
ceedingly questionable. The pressure of this very 
situation, however, the absolute necessity which 
English statesmen feel for directing the affairs of 
the Empire in accordance with their own concep- 
tion of its needs and without interference from 
the Irish Nationalists, convinces the latter that 
they have the best chance they have ever had to 
extort Home Rule from England even on these 
terms. 

They have pointed out to the disconsolate Min- 
istry the fact that they can hamper England's 
utilization of the resources she now possesses to 
an extent which might be fatal, and that the 
Ministry which is now in power can remain in 
power only so long as they are willing, and, con- 
comitantly, that the Ministry which will replace 
it can remain in power only on the same terms. 
The very fact that the alternative lies between 
using what England has and the increase of its 
force is to them the most important weapon in 
their arsenal. England must in self-defense come 
to terms with them. The Labor members are 

192 



AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

opposed to war on any terms. They have not 
scrupled publicly to declare that they owned 
nothing in England which the conquest of Eng- 
land by Germany could possibly take away from 
them, neither land, nor houses, nor wealth. They 
have the clothes on their backs; they are promised, 
so long as they work, enough food to keep them 
alive. This, they declare scornfully, is the sum 
total of their interest in the maintenance of the 
British Empire. Could the Germans ofiFer them 
less.'^ Whether because the Irish and the Labor- 
ites do not believe the danger great, or because 
they are determined to achieve their own objects, 
whatever the cost to England, is not clear; but 
the fact is certain that they have effectively pre- 
vented the adoption in the House of Commons of 
as large an increase of the naval appropriations as 
the Ministry desired to make, and have stoutly 
refused to approve conscription in any form. 

Knowing this, the Germans could not fail to 
consider a confession of weakness Mr. Churchill's 
public promise to decrease the English naval 
programme in proportion to any decrease in 
German plans, and his hint that England would 
be willing formally to guarantee the immunity of 
the Austrian seacoast from attack if the plans for 
the increase of the Austrian navy should be aban- 
doned; his scarcely veiled threat, to surpass in 

193 



PAN-GERMANISM 

number any increase they might attempt to 
make, they greeted with open derision. They 
believed that they had powerful allies in the 
English Ministry and in the English House of 
Commons, and, so confident were they that these 
allies would prevent him from executing his 
threat, that they announced a very substantial 
increase in the German and Austrian naval esti- 
mates. Such action was tantamount to a direct 
challenge to fulfill his threat, and the amazing 
fact is that he could not do it. The Laborites and 
the Home Rulers flatly refused to sanction Mr. 
Churchill's measures; they flatly declared they 
would oppose similar measures introduced by the 
opposite party, in case the Ministry should resign; 
and compelled the adoption of a compromise 
measure providing for so small an increase that, 
by the public admission of the First Lord of the 
Admiralty, Germany will have within two years 
twenty-nine ships in the North Sea to England's 
thirty-three. The Opposition both in the Com- 
mons and in the Lords, as well as the foremost 
naval and military authorities, are insisting in the 
frankest language that the Supplementary Esti- 
mates are utterly inadequate. Naturally, the 
knowledge of these facts has not diminished the 
confidence felt at Berlin, Vienna, and Rome, and 
it has so obviously weakened confidence at Paris, 

194 



AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

that some of the influential journals have actually 
begun to question the value of England's support 
should she lose, not her control of ^ the Channel 
by actual fighting, but her naval preponderance. 
Indeed, the contrast is sufficiently striking be- 
tween the prompt passage of a considerable Sup- 
plementary Estimate without dissent by a Reich- 
stag utterly hostile to the administration, and 
the grudging passage of so slight an increase by 
the English House of Commons where the exist- 
ing Ministry nominally controlled so powerful a 
majority as to have overridden even strenuous 
opposition to other measures. The Ministry has 
done what it could to counteract these doubts by 
secret promises and assurances. The naval dis- 
positions in the Mediterranean have been care- 
fully examined; conferences held between the 
French and the English authorities; the English 
and French naval boards went over the ground in 
person in the summer of 1912, and no doubt ar- 
rived at important conclusions. Lord Kitchener's 
success in Egypt, the results of the King's visit to 
India, continued success in Persia, also gave the 
Triple Entente confidence. 

The most encouraging aspect of the situation 
has been the prompt and enthusiastic response 
of the English self-governing colonies to the ap- 
peal of the mother country for assistance. Sev- 

195 



PAN-GERMANISM 

eral have adopted naval programmes; their ships 
are already under construction; they have pro- 
mised to add their vessels to the English navy and 
to leave their direction entirely in the hands of 
the Admiralty in London. The Canadian Min- 
istry has asked the Parliament to appropriate 
money for three first-class battleships, and will 
in all probability succeed in carrying the measure. 
This aid is so considerable in amount as to be of 
really substantial importance. 

The English also have reorganized the entire 
administration of their fleet, both for offense and 
defense; they have created a school for the train- 
ing in strategy of officers; and have instituted in 
addition a special board of experts, in whose hands 
will be placed, in time of action, the direction of 
operations. 

France has officially adopted the Two Power 
Standard in the Mediterranean, which is under- 
stood to mean that she will create and maintain 
a fleet sufficiently numerous easily to outweigh 
the combined Italian and Austrian navies. 
Spain's assistance or, perhaps, neutrality the 
allies have bought with concessions in Morocco. 
Russia, frightened at the prospect of the loss of 
the position in the Baltic she now possesses, has 
signed a naval convention with France, which 
pledges her to a rapid and really considerable 

196 



AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

increase of her Baltic fleet and the creation of a 
new naval base almost on the Prussian frontier. 
The existence of a really powerful Russian fleet 
in the Baltic might interfere vitally with the 
further execution of Germany's present plans. 
Berlin and all North Germany would be exposed 
to its attack; the Kiel Canal might be destroyed; 
the rear of the Atlantic squadron would be ex- 
posed to its operations; and its strength might 
be sufficient to compel the division of the German 
North Sea fleet, an eventuality which would so 
weaken the forces available for an offensive war 
as to postpone its date by years, if it did not make 
its outcome so uncertain as to prevent it alto- 
gether. 

But the most significant movement is the pro- 
ject for the Trans-Persian Railway which Eng- 
land, France, and Russia have adopted. The line 
is to run southeast from Teheran to Bushire in 
the English zone of influence and to follow the 
coast of the Persian Gulf to Karachi. Unquestion- 
ably, a Russian army arriving in India by that 
route would turn the flank of Quetta and render 
useless all the fortifications and dispositions yet 
made to keep Russia out of India. For England 
to consent to it is to abandon the policy of isolat- 
ing India from Europe by preventing the estab- 
lishment of easy communication by land. Should 

197 



PAN-GERMANISM 

Russia attack from Herat and from the new rail- 
road line at the same moment, nothing could 
prevent the overwhelming of the English army. 
Russia has three quarters of a million men en- 
rolled in her army who live within two thousand 
miles of the Indian frontier. They may not be 
highly trained, but they will certainly outnumber 
the English army ten to one, and the combined 
native and English troops four to one. Lord 
Curzon voices the convictions of many Anglo- 
Indians when he declares that the construction 
of the Trans-Persian Railway is the death-knell 
of the British power in India. It means, further, 
the admission of Russia to the rich marts of India, 
and a recognition of her right to share directly 
in that trade; and whatever its effect may be on 
English retention of the sovereignty in India, it 
will at once end England's practical monopoly 
of Indian trade. To the British merchant and 
manufacturer there would seem to be little left 
worth struggling for, if that is renounced. 

Such, however, are not the purposes of that 
railway, and such will not necessarily be the results 
of its construction. The project is based upon the 
absolute necessity for an English military road 
to India in case Germany and her allies succeed 
in securing actual control of the Mediterranean. 
The new road would prevent the use by Germany 

198 



AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

of the Baghdad Railway and the Persian Gulf as 
an approach to India. It would enable England, 
so long as her alliance with Russia lasted, to re- 
inforce the Indian army far more rapidly than 
would be possible by way of the Panama Canal 
and the Pacific. In fact, should the Triple Alli- 
ance secure control of the Mediterranean, nothing 
short of some such road would enable England 
and Russia combined to place enough troops in 
India to prevent its immediate conquest by Ger- 
many. England wishes to keep it; Russia has 
always dreamed of possessing it; but both would 
rather see it in the hands of the other than allow 
Germany to get it. Such an increase of German 
power would at once endanger the very exist- 
ence of England and the continued possession 
by Russia of any territories in the Baltic or in 
Poland. To the English Ministry, moreover, the 
danger of losing India because of the new rail- 
way's construction seems small beside the un- 
deniable military value of the road as an offensive 
measure against Germany. The road will run 
mainly through British territory; it will follow 
the coast of the Persian Gulf, and therefore can 
always be controlled by an English fleet; nor will 
it put Russia nearer the Indian defenses than she 
is already; the lookouts at Herat can almost see a 
Russian railway station, and Herat is the key to 

199 



PAN-GERMANISM 

India, scarcely a fourth as far from the frontier 
and Quetta as Teheran is from Karachi. In fact, 
say the English military experts, Russia already 
possesses quite as favorable a position for an 
assault as the railway would afford her; but 
clearly she does not wish to use it, nor will she 
desire to do so as long as the assistance of Eng- 
land and France is necessary to prevent Germany 
from overrunning the Baltic. 

The feasibility of a military road to India 
through Russia and Persia has been many times 
declared. The route through Turkestan, across 
the Caspian and up the Russian rivers, was one 
of the commonest roads followed by invasion 
after invasion from Asia; it was one of the recog- 
nized trade routes of Europe during the Middle 
Ages, and was well worn by the feet of merchants. 
Upon its existence, the English Muscovy Com- 
pany depended, and from the trade grew wealthy. 
Until the construction of the Suez Canal, it was 
as practicable as any land route and more rapid, 
though more expensive and dangerous, than the 
voyage round the Cape of Good Hope. Through 
it Alexander invaded India, and no less a soldier 
than Napoleon himself conceived the idea of fol- 
lowing the precise route the English and Russians 
propose to employ in case of need. Napoleon had 
the whole route carefully surveyed and measured, 

200 



AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR 

and his engineers reported its entire practicabil- 
ity. 

In addition, if we suppose the existence of a 
general European war and an attempt by Ger- 
many on India at a time when England could 
spare neither men nor ships from European 
waters, the new railway would enable her to per- 
mit a suflScient Russian force to enter India to 
defeat the Germans without actually delivering 
into Russia's hands the keys of the Himalayas, 
Herat and Quetta. Should Russia after defeating 
Germany turn traitor, the English in India, with 
the possession of Quetta and the aid of the fleet 
set free by Germany's defeat, might still make 
a good fight. Should Germany decisively defeat 
the Channel fleet while her allies were overrun- 
ning the Mediterranean, the deluge would have 
already arrived, and India would be irretrievably 
lost, railway or no railway, and England would be 
glad to see a nation strengthened by the posses- 
sion of India which might do battle with the all- 
conquering German. The Trans-Persian Railway 
is not necessarily desirable; it seems to the Eng- 
lish merely the best of a number of extremely 
undesirable and regrettable expedients of which 
unfortunately one must be chosen. So a deputa- 
tion of the members of the House of Commons 
and of London merchant princes visited Russia 

201 



PAN-GERMANISM 

and formally sanctioned the commercial aspects 
of the military agreement. The incident shows 
conclusively how dependent England is upon her 
allies and how much trust she is forced to repose 
in them. It indicates with even greater certainty 
the English belief in the feasibility of the German 
plans for securing possession of the Mediterranean 
and Suez Canal. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE GREAT REPULSE: THE BALKAN CRISIS 

THE great success of the war in Tripoli, as a 
method of extorting territory from the Turk 
and of preventing the interference of England 
and France with the execution of the plans for 
the rearrangement of the Mediterranean without 
the employment of actual force, promptly sug- 
gested to the diplomats and statesmen in Berlin 
and Vienna the prosecution of war in the Balkans. 
The Turk was unexpectedly reluctant to resign 
to Italy, even at the instigation of his new mas- 
ters, the rich province of Tripoli. It seemed to 
the Young Turks the last straw, that, at just 
the moment when they were seeking to rouse in 
Turkey a national spirit, and to secure control of 
the government for a national party, whose policy 
should be based upon the interests of Turkey and 
not upon those of Europe, they should be forced 
at the very outset to consent to the dismember- 
ment of Turkey as the condition of their longer 
continuance in power. It seemed to them, in fact, 
that, if they must yield in Tripoli, autonomy 
would never be a reality in Turkey, and the 

203 



PAN-GERMANISM 

visions they had long cherished, and the material 
privations they had endured for the last decade 
or more, would be all rendered futile. The Triple 
Alliance obviously needed some lever with which 
to pry Tripoli from the clutches of the Young 
Turk without the necessity of actually taking it. 
It was, furthermore, highly essential that the 
Young Turk should not execute a coup d'Stat and 
desert them for the old alliance with England and 
France. That, above all, must not be risked. 
Some method must be found which would put 
pressure upon him without permitting him to 
desert and without allowing England or France 
an opportunity to interfere. The obvious method 
was war in the Balkans, where the military move- 
ments could be undertaken by the states, whose 
relations with the Turk were always tense, and 
whose private grievances were so familiar and so 
adequate in the eyes of Europe as fully to justify 
a resort to arms. The Turk would thus be between 
two fires. With war in Europe and war in Africa 
and only one army, he would be compelled to 
preserve Tripoli at the risk of defeat in Europe, 
or to renounce Tripoli and conclude peace with 
Italy on Italy's own terms, in order to insure 
the safety of his dominions in Europe. The mo- 
ment also was most opportune for an attempt 
to rearrange affairs in the Balkans, and to 

204 



THE BALKAN CRISIS 

attempt the realization of the Balkan Confeder- 
acy, on whose creation the final success of 
Pan-Germanism absolutely depended. The tense 
situation in Europe; the dangers to which the 
English and French were obviously exposed in 
the Mediterranean by the inability to use their 
previous naval dispositions for regaining control 
of the eastern Mediterranean; the time which 
must necessarily elapse before a force sufficient 
to regain that control could be assembled in the 
Mediterranean, all these factors made their 
actual interference improbable. The Germans 
calculated that, the odds being against England, 
she would not dare risk action. Therefore, with 
the probability of a free hand, the opportunity 
seemed ripe for the prosecution of the schemes 
for the reorganization of southeastern Europe. 

The programme was practically made public 
by Austria, who advocated decentralization in 
Turkey along the lines already suggested, but 
never executed, in the Treaty of Berlin. The 
notion was to break up European Turkey by 
creating independent states in Albania and Mace- 
donia and to make a new state out of the remains 
of Turkey in Europe. These three states, with 
the older communities of Rumania, Bulgaria, 
Servia, Montenegro, and perhaps Greece, should 
form a new confederation, governing the whole 

205 



PAN-GERMANISM 

of the district between the Austrian and Russian 
frontiers and the ^gean and Mediterranean 
seas.^ Asia Minor would become the seat of the 
old Turkish Empire and should be bound tightly 
to Germany or Austria, and, if that were not 
possible, to the new confederation, by bonds 
which practically would compel the Turk to re- 
nounce control of policy and resources. In some 
way or other, by commercial agreements, if no 
more direct method was available, Austria was 
to secure Saloniki as a naval base from which to 
control the Mgean and the whole eastern Medi- 
terranean, and either Austria or Italy was to 
secure the remainder of the eastern shore of the 
Adriatic. The allies calculated that a little show 
of force by the Balkan States would put enough 
pressure upon the Turks to compel the cession of 
Tripoli, and might also drive the Young Turks 
from power and reinstate the old bureaucracy, 
whom Austria and Germany already owned body 
and soul. Then the Treaty of Berlin could be 
interpreted in such a manner as to enable the 
allies to claim that the other Powers had already 
given their consent to the new scheme of reorgani- 
zation, would permit them to insist that no Euro- 
pean Congress was necessary, and that the execu- 

* The notion of a Balkan confederation supported by the Triple 
Alliance seems to have originated in 1889. Crispi, Memoirs, u, 384- 
385. 

d06 



THE BALKAN CRISIS 

tion of the Treaty ought completely to satisfy all 
parties. The irony of the situation would be that 
they would thus possess the Turk's own consent 
to his own destruction before they conquered him. 
When these arrangements were finished, and it 
seemed hardly doubtful but that they could be 
completed, Pan-Germanism would be practically 
a reality. There would be much yet to do, but 
formally it would have come into existence. 

There were also vital reasons for attempting ac- 
tion in the fall of 1912. The death of the Emperor 
Franz Josef has been expected at any moment 
during the last few years and becomes more prob- 
able each month. Inasmuch as his death has been 
confidently expected to give the signal for a gen- 
eral revolt throughout the Dual Monarchy, it was 
highly essential to move before such a catastrophe 
deprived Austria of the possibility of action. 
Indeed, his death might force the allies to devote 
their time for some years to the reorganization of 
Austria-Hungary before they could proceed fur- 
ther with the scheme. Success in the Balkans 
and in Turkey, the actual creation of a Pan- 
Germanic chain, would not improbably so impress 
public opinion as to insure the continuance of the 
present arrangements and thwart the schemes of 
the irreconcilables. Should worst come to worst, 
a third monarchy could be created out of the 

207 



PAN-GERMANISM 

Croatian and Slavonic and Serbonian communi- 
ties in southwestern Austria which would have the 
same relations to Austria as Hungary, would 
satisfy the most dangerous malcontents and en- 
able the Empire to deal effectively with Bohemia 
and Galicia. Such an eventuality, however, 
raised many possible questions and would be cer- 
tain to rouse suspicion in the Balkans. The adop- 
tion by England and Russia of the scheme for 
the Trans-Persian Railway, obviously a military 
road to circumvent the Baghdad Railway, to 
retain control of the Persian Gulf and render 
ineffectual the seizure of Suez, proved to the 
Germans that no time was to be lost, if the con- 
quest of India, as the ultimate aim of the great 
confederation, was not to become impossible. 
The loss of India, Germany could not consider 
calmly, for the creation and maintenance of the 
Pan-German Confederation would compel her to 
hand over to her allies practically all the gains 
in the Mediterranean and in Europe, and her 
own share was to be India. The Panama Canal, 
moreover, another military road to the East, was 
nearing completion, would probably be practical 
as early as January, 1914, and its completion is 
expected to render the control of the Mediter- 
ranean and Red Sea infinitely less important to 

England than before. The risks of immediate 

208 



THE BALKAN CRISIS 

action did not seem too great; the probable gains 
were undeniable; and the allies therefore decided 
upon action. 

The Balkan States, who received intimations of 
the desirability of war from Berlin and Vienna, 
were astounded to receive, almost simultaneously, 
suggestions of the desirability of war with Turkey 
from London, Paris, and St. Petersburg. The 
Triple Entente had made up its mind that the 
moment was opportune for an attempt to erect 
a barrier in the way of Pan-Germanism which 
should not improbably postpone its execution at 
least a decade. Only in the Balkans could they 
hope in the long run successfully to oppose the 
Triple Alliance, nor could there be, from their 
point of view, a more favorable spot for opposition. 
The Balkan peoples had long hated Austria for 
racial and religious reasons, were determined, if 
possible, to win their own national independence, 
and, presenting, therefore, unusual difficulties to 
the statesmen seeking to amalgamate them with 
the Triple Alliance, furnished the latter 's ene- 
mies the most favorable field in which to work. 
The strategic position of the Balkans, controlling 
all the roads between Europe and Asia Minor, 
controlling the iEgean and the Adriatic, was 
so necessary to Pan-Germanism, that no more 
deadly blow could possibly be dealt that scheme 

209 



PAN-GERMANISM 

than the creation of a Balkan confederacy under 
the aegis of the Triple Entente, pledged to inde- 
pendence for the Balkan peoples of both coali- 
tions. The stronger the confederation, the more 
independent, the greater obstacle it would be in 
the path of Pan-Germanism. The very qualities 
and resources, which would lead the Balkans to 
desire freedom from entangling alliances with the 
Triple Entente itself, would be the very qualities 
which would render improbable any agreement 
with the Triple Alliance, and would animate 
them with a patriotism and a determination to 
resist which could not fail to work for the benefit 
of the Triple Entente. For it is not necessary 
that the latter should itself control them. Its 
dispositions in the Mediterranean will be equally 
benefited if their possession by the Triple Alliance 
is rendered improbable. From the point of view 
of England and France, moreover, who neces- 
sarily distrust somewhat their ally, Russia, be- 
cause of her ambitions in the Black Sea, the 
stronger the confederation, the more independent, 
the greater would be their own safety from pos- 
sible treachery on the part of Russia. 

At the same time both nations realized that the 
Tripolitan War had completely changed their own 
policies in regard to Turkey. Their objection to 
Russia at Constantinople had been based upon 

210 



THE BALKAN CRISIS 

the desire to exclude from the Mediterranean all 
possible rivals; but the loss of Tripoli, the loss of 
Turkey, both of which had fallen into the hands 
of their enemies, and the fear of the creation of a 
confederacy of states in the Balkans under Ger- 
man or Austrian protection, thoroughly disposed 
of their objections to Russia's ownership of that 
same territory. If they must have a rival in those 
seas, a thousand times better that it should be 
Russia than the Triple Alliance. Russia's Black 
Sea fleet has still to be made powerful enough to 
be able to interfere in the Mediterranean; she is so 
dependent upon their assistance to preserve her 
present position in northeastern Europe that she 
is not likely to take action elsewhere which would 
be contrary enough to their interests to cause a 
rupture of the Entente. On the other hand, the 
mere possession of the Balkans by Russia would 
be as permanent a guarantee as could well be 
imagined of the failure of Pan-Germanism for all 
time, and would, more than any other one thing, 
render Morocco, India, and even England itself 
safe from aggression. In the Black Sea, Russia 
could create, safe from interference, a fleet which 
could issue forth from the Straits in time of need 
and fall upon the rear of the Austro-Italian fleet 
operating from the Adriatic or Tripoli. Should 
Russia be able to secure possession of all the 

211 



PAN-GERMANISM 

Balkans, she would also control the -^gean and 
the Adriatic, would occupy in Servia a post in 
the rear of Hungary, highly dangerous to the 
Dual Monarchy, from which an invasion, simul- 
taneous with an attack through Galicia, could 
hardly fail to have fatal consequences. Russia 
in the Balkans, in other words, would promptly 
compel Germany and Austria to take up the de- 
fensive and to do so under distinct disadvantages. 
Once Russia occupied such a position, England 
and France could promptly overrun the Mediter- 
ranean, take Trieste, conquer the Adriatic, isolate 
Italy, compel her at the very least to cede Tripoli. 
Thus they could secure a firmer hold upon the 
Mediterranean than ever before. From Russia's 
point of view, an independent confederation in 
the Balkans, coupled to the right of freedom of 
passage through the Straits and the permission 
to create a fleet in the Black Sea, would be prac- 
tically as advantageous a solution as she could 
ask. Aside from the plains of the Lower Danube, 
the Balkans themselves are of little value to her, 
and so vitally threaten Austria that war could 
hardly be avoided. Russia is more anxious to 
open the Black Sea and to obtain naval control 
than she is to force the issue with Austria at 
present. An independent Balkan confederation 
would protect the Straits from Austria, and would 

212 



THE BALKAN CRISIS 

in practice, whatever treaties and agreements 
might say, give her control. 

Should the war succeed, the Turk could cer- 
tainly be driven from Constantinople, and even 
if it were expedient to leave him there he might 
be compelled or induced to create a Khalifate in 
Egypt or Arabia to rule the Mohammedans in the 
English and French possessions. The latter are 
extremely desirous of quieting the religious fer- 
ment which has so hampered their actions on 
more than one occasion, by substituting for a 
religious head of the Mohammedans, held in the 
clutches of Germany, a religious head in their own 
control. They wish to remove the excuse for a 
Holy War, or, at any rate, to prevent the declara- 
tion of a Holy War by the Sultan in Constanti- 
nople which Mohammedans throughout the world 
would feel bound to recognize. Pan-Islam is a 
spectre terrifying to them in the extreme. More- 
over, should the Germans achieve anything like 
further success in the reorganization, so-called, of 
southeastern Europe, it would become absolutely 
necessary for some member of the Triple Entente 
to take possession of Constantinople, to say the 
least, and, not improbably, to put an end to the 
nominal independence of Turkey. Such a blow 
at the Sultan would certainly be resented in India, 
Egypt, and Morocco, and the statesmen are ex- 

213 



PAN-GERMANISM 

tremely anxious either to remove the Sultan from 
the danger zone or to shear him of his religious 
headship. 

The Balkan States scarcely believed in the 
verity of these communications. The splendor 
of the opportunity fairly dazzled their eyes. It 
had long seemed to them that there was really a 
chance to free themselves from the shackles of 
both coalitions and of winning from the Turk, 
without much difficulty, their freedom and that 
of their compatriots in the Turkish Empire, so 
long as the two coalitions did not actually sup- 
port Turkey. Of that fact they were apprehensive. 
While the Turk had been the Sick Man of Europe, 
maintained by the Powers because of the incur- 
able nature of his disease, the sovereignty of the 
Turk over the Macedonians and Albanians was 
purely nominal and the sufferings of the people 
under his rule practically confined to the reprisals 
of the soldiery upon the populace. As a neighbor 
of those Balkan States who had achieved nominal 
independence, the Sick Man was not very danger- 
ous. His very incompetence was a practical guar- 
antee of their own safety. The strengthening of 
Turkey, the organization of a really efficient ad- 
ministration and army, whether by the Young 
Turks or by the Germans, would certainly dimin- 
ish the probability of securing the actual auto- 

214 



THE BALKAN CRISIS 

nomy which the Balkan peoples had long ardently 
desired. As fast as Turkish government grew bet- 
ter, to that degree would disappear the grievances 
which made plausible the demands of the alien 
peoples for freedom from his rule. Indeed, if 
many more officers were appointed of the stamp 
of Hussein Kiazim Bey, the people would have 
very little to complain about, and the Powers 
would certainly need some strong arguments to 
convince them of the expediency of permitting the 
Balkan States to change the existing dispositions. 
The continuance, therefore, of the present situa- 
tion meant that the probability of eventual inde- 
pendence diminished annually and might soon 
disappear. 

The moment, chosen by the two coalitions as 
opportune for war from their point of view, was 
singularly advantageous from the point of view 
of the Balkans themselves. Turkey was at war 
with Italy; the real Turkish army was in Africa 
and would stay there as long as the Italian fleet 
controlled the sea; moreover, they were assured 
by both coalitions of the nominal character of the 
resistance with which the Turk would oppose 
them; the war was to be a sham battle arranged 
for theatrical effect. The Turks themselves were 
gravely divided between the party willing to 
cooperate with the Germans and the Young 

215 



PAN-GERMANISM 

Turks, anxious to strike a blow for Turkish inde- 
pendence before it was too late. The Balkan 
States had, moreover, been most kindly supplied 
with arms, money, and instruction in tactics and 
in the strategy of war by their "friends," and 
would therefore enter the struggle with literally 
every circumstance in their favor. The ease, 
therefore, of playing the game for themselves, of 
rushing upon the Turk with all possible speed, of 
dealing him as many deadly blows as they could 
as soon after the beginning of war as possible, was 
so apparent that there was little doubt in Sofia 
and Athens that the Turk would be brought to his 
knees before the Powers could realize that they 
had been betrayed. Once victorious, once pos- 
sessed of the military control of Turkey, they 
would have their greatest chance of maintaining 
their independence that they ever hoped to have. 
If half a million men, natural soldiers, in a natu- 
ral fortress, well equipped with other people's re- 
sources, could not maintain themselves against 
assault, independence for the Balkans was a vision 
which would never be attained. If they must 
fight to attain it, they could never have a better 
chance than this. But they were fully aware 
that the chances of their needing to fight were 
small. The existence of the two coalitions and 

the identity of their plans would convince them 

216 



THE BALKAN CRISIS 

both that the Balkans were acting in their in- 
terests, and neither was at all likely to interfere 
until too late; for, when the truth of the situation 
should dawn upon them, it was more than likely 
that they would both see it simultaneously, real- 
ize that they had been hoodwinked, and be too 
much afraid of each other to dare to interfere. 
At any rate, diplomacy could be depended upon 
to play off the Powers one against the other. If 
the Balkan States could only get into their hands 
the strategic places, their assistance would be too 
vital to the completion of the schemes of both co- 
alitions to make doubtful their ability to secure 
their own price. In any case, they would not be 
again subjected to the Turk. If they must resign 
themselves to the protection of one coalition or 
the other, they could undoubtedly secure for them- 
selves infinitely better terms than they could 
otherwise have had. 

Under these circumstances, the Balkan States 
began the war with a vigor and an energy which 
astounded Europe, began it, too, in the fall, con- 
trary to the advice of both coalitions, and pushed 
it to a successful conclusion within a few weeks. 
The first result was that anticipated by the Triple 
Alliance, peace between Turkey and Italy, and 
the cession to the latter of unconditional sover- 
eignty over Tripoli. The next results were unex- 

217 



PAN-GERMANISM 

pected. The war was too realistic. It was entirely 
undesirable for the Balkans to destroy the Turk- 
ish army which the Germans had created with so 
much difficulty and expense to control Constan- 
tinople and the Baghdad Railway. The Triple 
Entente by no means desired to hand over, even 
for a time, to the Balkan States Constantinople 
and the Straits. The first successes were probably 
due to the fact that the Turk was not prepared 
for that type of an attack, had been ordered to fall 
back upon Adrianople which was to be besieged. 
He accordingly fell back on Adrianople; the Bul- 
garians promptly marched round him, and fell 
upon the disorganized forces behind, who were 
as yet unprepared for operations of such magni- 
tude. Before the Turk had time to take breath, 
before Berlin and Vienna recovered from the first 
shock, the Bulgarians were almost within sight 
of Constantinople, and their allies were pushing 
the war in the west and south to a successful con- 
clusion with great rapidity. 

It now became clear to the Balkans that the 
moment had come to deal with the Powers. No 
doubt, before the war began, the confederates had 
a reasonably clear idea of the terms they could 
expect from both coalitions, and they did not 
need to contemplate them longer to see that the 
Triple Entente was prepared to offer them vastly 

218 



THE BALKAN CRISIS 

more satisfactory conditions. At the best, all they 
could hope from the Triple Alliance was the con- 
trol of their local affairs; the international rela- 
tions must be delivered over to the allies. The 
Triple Entente, on the other hand, while it would 
also expect to direct their international policy, 
found its own interests best suited by increasing 
the strength and independence of the Balkans 
themselves. Pan-Germanism, in fact, depended 
for its success upon their absorption by Germany 
and Austria, while the defeat of Pan-Germanism 
by the Triple Entente would depend upon the ex- 
tent to which Balkan independence of Germany 
and Austria could be made a reality. This was 
certainly as virtual independence as it was prob- 
able that the possessors of such important strate- 
gic points would ever be likely to secure from the 
Powers. The fact that Russia's right of free pas- 
sage through the Straits would in large measure 
satisfy her ambitions and put into her hands, 
without danger to the Balkan Confederation, 
what she chiefly valued, and what she would ex- 
pect to obtain from the conquest of the whole 
territory, nay, what she had believed could be ob- 
tained only after the conquest of the whole terri- 
tory, would give them a greater degree of assur- 
ance against aggression from her, than they could 
ever have from Austria. Money was another 

219 



PAN-GERMANISM 

desideratum. The supply from Berlin and Vienna 
would obviously cease; there was no money in 
the Balkans and no resources which could be 
turned into money. To get the money, therefore, 
necessary to finance their independence, and, in 
particular, the money with which to maintain it, 
should they have to fight longer for it, they must 
sell themselves to the Triple Entente. This, they 
proceeded to do with dispatch, and announced 
in consequence that they would deal only with 
Turkey and would deal with her only upon 
the unconditional acceptance of their maximum 
terms. The King of Greece was to become Presi- 
dent of the Federation, and the territory con- 
quered from the Turk — except for Constanti- 
nople and Saloniki — was to be divided among the 
existing states. The Bulgarians claimed Thrace; 
the Greeks, Macedonia; the Servians, Albania, 
including the seacoast on the Adriatic. Constan- 
tinople, Saloniki, and the Straits they expected to 
see internationalized, the Turkish Empire rele- 
gated to Asia Minor, a freedom of passage ac- 
corded every one through the Straits. That these 
terms could finally be obtained, neither the Bal- 
kans nor their new allies probably believed, but 
that was no reason why they should not be de- 
manded. 

Undoubtedly, the war has been a great victory 

220 



THE BALKAN CRISIS 

for the Balkans themselves in their long crusade 
against the Turk. They now hope to drive the 
Infidel out of Europe and thus permanently to res- 
cue their co-religionists from his clutches, both of 
which achievements would be supremely gratify- 
ing to them. For the present, at any rate, they 
are actually independent and, unless a renewal of 
the war should bring with it unexpected reverses, 
they are likely to remain so. 

The chief results of the war, however, have 
not accrued to them but to their new allies, who 
have thus eiffectively retrieved the disaster in Tri- 
poli. Not only will the Balkan Confederation be a 
stumbling-block in the path of Pan-Germanism, 
which is hardly likely to be moved for the pre- 
sent, but temporarily the alliance between the 
Balkans and the Triple Entente has restored 
the balance of power in the Mediterranean. The 
Greeks have driven the Italians out of most of 
the islands of the iEgean; Crete, which hitherto 
has had an anomalous existence, as an inter- 
national possession, has been united to Greece 
and will give the Triple Entente a powerful naval 
station east of Malta. Above all, the loss of 
the islands, the certain strengthening of the Eng- 
lish and French fleets in the Mediterranean, the 
improbability of Austria's taking possession of 
Saloniki for some time to come, have greatly 

221 



PAN-GERMANISM 

reduced the chances of the use of Tripoli as a 
military and naval base. Certainly, until the 
Austrians and Italians are prepared to contest 
the supremacy of the Mediterranean, the Italians 
will have only such relations with Tripoli as the 
English permit. The latter are not likely to bring 
the question of Italy's right to Tripoli to a test of 
force, but they will no doubt feel themselves jus- 
tified in preventing her from attempting any- 
thing beyond the commercial development of the 
country. 

The interposition of the Balkan Confederation 
between Austria and Turkey has for the time be- 
ing deprived the Germans of communication with 
Turkey and has jeopardized their control of the 
Baghdad Railway. The Turk, excluded from 
Europe, robbed of his most valuable possession, 
the Straits, would not be as available material 
from the German point of view as he was. The 
new Turkish army, if we suppose that it was safe 
and sound in Tripoli and was not shot to pieces 
in the war, would no longer be as valuable as 
when it could hope to guard the trade route from 
Constantinople well through the mountains, pro- 
tecting Constantinople itself and the Baghdad 
Railway. The importance of protecting the rail- 
way may still be great, but the commercial im- 
portance of its protection can amount to very 

222 



THE BALKAN CRISIS 

little so long as the trade route has been cut apart 
in the middle. Not improbably commercial treat- 
ies can be signed with the Balkans, but if the latter 
are able to maintain their present position either by 
extorting favorable terms from the reluctant Turk 
or by a renewal of the war, such treaties will be 
subject to rupture at a moment's notice. The 
expediency may well be questioned of spending 
money in the development of Asia Minor by a 
power which can obtain access to the district only 
by the sufferance of states hostile to her ambitions. 
These significant changes of strategic position 
led both the Triple Alliance and the Turks to 
offer terms of peace so remote from the demands 
of the Balkan States as to evoke from the latters' 
representatives at the negotiations opened at 
London in December, 1912, the excited cry that 
the Turkish proposals did not even provide a basis 
for compromise and practically ignored the vic- 
tories of the allies. The Turkish proposals were in 
very truth nothing more nor less than the salient 
features of the plan of the Triple Alliance for the 
reorganization of south-eastern Europe which 
would have been executed had the Balkan States 
remained faithful and conquered Turkey as at 
first arranged. Such terms would, indeed, rob 
the victors of the spoils; would create new auto- 
nomous states out of the territory just conquered, 

223 



PAN-GERMANISM 

and, injury of injuries, would actually leave the 
new states under Turkish suzerainty. Such offers 
were rightly interpreted as defiance, as unwilling- 
ness to accept the most obvious facts of the mili- 
tary situation. 

In addition, the Albanians were persuaded by 
Austrian promises of support to declare them- 
selves independent, and Servia saw her access to 
the Adriatic, the dearest of her ambitions, her 
chief reason for joining in the war at all, snatched 
from her. At Vienna, however, it was felt that im- 
mediate war would be preferable to the surrender 
of Albania and the shores of the lower Adriatic 
to any such confederation supported by the 
Triple Entente. Vigorous diplomatic representa- 
tions were followed by the mobilization of Austrian 
army corps and of the Danube fleet. In the face 
of this determination, both the Triple Entente 
and Servia judged it best to agree to the inde- 
pendence of Albania, and for Servia to obtain 
access to the Adriatic by means of a railway 
whose neutrality would be secured by interna- 
tional agreement. 

But upon the destruction of the Turkish power 
in Europe, the Balkans insisted, and were secretly 
supported by the Triple Entente, which hoped 
thus to destroy one more link of the chain of 
Pan-Germanism. The Balkan States, therefore, 

^24 



THE BALKAN CRISIS 

demanded the surrender of most of Thrace and in 
particular of the great fortress of Adrianople, whose 
possession would expose Constantinople to assault 
at any time and leave the Turk a bare foothold on 
the Bosphorus, of which he could at any timebe de- 
prived. Besides, unless Thrace were obtained, there 
would be no territory to be won by the Bulgarians, 
who had done most of the fighting, for the Greeks 
obstinately declined to share Macedonia with 
them. If Adrianople could not be secured with- 
out further fighting, it was clearly to the interests 
of the Balkans and their allies to renew the war. 

On the other hand, for the Turks to yield 
Adrianople, without further fighting, would mean 
for Germany and Austria the unresisting acquies- 
cence in the virtual failure of Pan-Germanism by 
permitting the interposition of a permanent bar- 
rier between them and Asia Minor, which would 
compel them to relinquish Turkey, Constanti- 
nople, the control of the Straits, the Baghdad Rail- 
way, and the commercial route to the East at one 
fell swoop. To have lost the Balkans was disas- 
trous; to lose Constantinople as well would be the 
death-knell of Pan-Germanism. They are there- 
fore in favor of allowing the Turk to fight again. 

Nor is the Turk unwilling. The Young Turks 
are well aware that the new Turkish army, 
trained by Von der Goltz, has not yet been in 

225 



PAN-GERMANISM 

battle, and, until it has been defeated, they de- 
cline to surrender as much as they might lose if 
their whole army had been annihilated in a long, 
hard-fought war. Have they not already beaten 
the Greeks? Have they not checked the Italian 
advance in Tripoli? Above all, these fresh troops, 
well equipped, will meet an army decimated by its 
recklessness in earlier battles, with resources seri- 
ously impaired by a long campaign and a long 
armistice, and with its lines of communication 
blocked by snow and ice. 

At the moment of writing, therefore, January 
19, 1913, the renewal of the war seems more 
likely to further the interests of all concerned 
than the adoption of any terms yet proposed. 
The actual inabihty of Germany or Austria to 
finance the war for Turkey or to supply her with 
arms and ammunition may force the latter to 
yield, and will in all probability prevent pro- 
longed resistance. Certainly, Austria's inabihty 
to float a relatively small loan in Europe and the 
sale of the bonds in New York at an interest rate 
of seven per cent, demonstrates conclusively the 
financial stringency in Austria, Germany, and 
Italy. It really seems as if the control of the 
financial world by the Triple Entente had again 
defeated the Triple Alliance, for the latter is 
recommending the Turks to cede Adrianople. 

226 



THE BALKAN CRISIS 

For all these reasons, it is highly unlikely that 
the Triple Alliance will attempt in the immediate 
future any movement to alter the situation by di- 
rect intervention in the Balkans. The Confedera- 
tion is too strong in men, too strongly entrenched 
to make military operations anything but hazard- 
ous, even had they no aid to expect from Russia. 
The whole of Europe is too well prepared to risk 
a general war at present. Modern warfare is of 
such character that the element of surprise in an 
attack is almost certain to conclude the war in the 
aggressor's favor, while an attack upon a nation 
fully prepared to receive it becomes under mod- 
ern conditions inevitably hazardous. Besides, it is 
by no means clear at the present moment that 
the Triple Alliance is strong enough in armies 
and navies to boast an even chance of victory in 
a contest with the Triple Entente. They will, 
therefore, if again defeated after the renewal of 
war, be likely to conceal their chagrin as best 
they can, accept such losses of strategic position 
as diplomacy cannot avoid, and hope that some 
opportunity will appear in the near future of dis- 
covering a price, which they can afford to pay the 
Balkans, and which the latter will consider a 
suflScient inducement, to make it worth their while 
to change sides. Indeed, the stronger the Balkan 
Confederation, the more independent, the greater 

227 



PAN-GERMANISM 

factor it will become in European affairs, the 
more difficult it will become for either coalition to 
act without its support, the more active will be- 
come their bidding for its favor, the more diffi- 
cult it will become for either of them to interfere 
in that district by force. 

The vital difficulty in perpetuating the new 
Balkan Confederacy is that the governmental 
lines as they are now drawn do not coincide with 
the most important racial and religious lines. 
Bosnia, Herzegovina, and the Illyrian coast, 
which are now part of Austria, belong racially, re- 
ligiously, and geographically with Servia. Much 
of Hungary similarly ought to be connected with 
Rumania, while Albania contains so many races 
and creeds that it does not really belong any- 
where. It must not be forgotten, too, in consid- 
ering the ease of separating the Balkan Confeder- 
ation into its component parts by the diplomacy 
of either coalition, that the Balkans have long 
been the scene of a blood feud between the Mo- 
hammedans and Christians, many of whom will 
inevitably remain in their present positions, and 
that in the Balkans continues at present the 
active struggle for supremacy between the Greek 
and Latin branches of the Christian Church. 
The hatred of the Greeks in Servia and in Bul- 
garia was until recently intense, and, however 

228 



THE BALKAN CRISIS 

these varied states may have compromised at 
present their various jarring ambitions, or have 
buried for the time being their traditional hatreds, 
once the Turk is thoroughly disposed of, and they 
settle down to the difficult task of living with each 
other, they are more than likely to fall at logger- 
heads over the inevitable administrative and gov- 
ernmental questions involved in the institution 
of a permanent settlement. If the treaty of peace 
hands over Macedonia to Greece, it is hardly 
likely that the diplomats will succeed in demarcat- 
ing the limits of that hitherto elastic province 
in a fashion which will satisfy more than a frac- 
tion of those interested. There are so many quasi- 
logical and reasonable methods of separating it 
from Servia, Bulgaria, and Greece, that none of 
them are likely to meet the wishes of all concerned. 
The present Balkan unity is based upon their 
hatred of the Turk and their fears of European 
interference. When once their autonomy is defi- 
nitely assured, both of these bonds will disappear, 
and the lack of geographical, religious, racial, 
administrative, economic unity of any kind, sort, 
or description will inevitably begin to manifest 
itself in ways which cannot be foreseen, and 
which cannot fail to test to the utmost the sanity 
and ability of the native statesman. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM 

ANY consideration, however slight or casual, 
of the justifiability of so far-reaching a plan 
as Pan-Germanism must necessarily begin with 
the validity of the standard to be employed in 
judging it. Even a comparatively slight acquaint- 
ance with history will make suflSciently evident 
the existence in the world of politics and business 
of a different standard from that criterion of abso- 
lute truth which we ordinarily apply to the con- 
duct of individuals. We find, in fact, that same 
double standard in existence in international poli- 
tics which is so perplexing to the majority of men 
in connection with every-day business, where the 
usual conception of ethics declares it right for 
one man to best the other by any means he can, 
short of actual violence and the actual breach of 
the letter of the law. The majority of men, what- 
ever professions they are willing to make verbally, 
do not practice the Golden Rule or the Ser- 
mon on the Mount. If we apply to the situation 
in international politics the ethical and moral 
tenets, frankly professed by the community, and, 

^30 



THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM 

as frankly, disregarded in every-day life, we shall 
necessarily conclude that Pan-Germanism is not 
and never can be justifiable. If we proceed, too, 
in attempting to evaluate the moral and ethical 
aspects of Pan-Germanism, from the position in 
regard to war assumed by the numerous societies 
advocating international peace or arbitration, 
we shall also be in danger of assuming the truth 
of our conclusion as our premise. The advocates 
of peace declare that war is cruel, brutal, econo- 
mically wasteful, and, from every point of view, 
opposed to the true interests of the community 
as a whole and of the individuals who compose it. 
They declaim against it as foolish; who would 
really be so lacking in reason as to suppose that 
the truth and justice of great questions could 
be established by fighting .^^ Such men must still 
be dwelling mentally in the darkness of remote 
antiquity. They insist that war is void of good 
result; who can be so lost to all sense of propor- 
tion and value as to suppose that destruction can 
be constructive ? To argue from any such premises 
as these will be necessarily to establish that any 
such scheme of aggression as that proposed by 
Germany is not only lacking in morality but in 
sanity. 

The candid student, however, who is not anx- 
ious to support a propaganda, and who seeks 

231 



PAN-GERMANISM 

rather to explain and expound the real reasons 
which have led men into such paths as they are 
now following than to cavil and blame, will recog- 
nize in Pan-Germanism the expression of a na- 
tional determination to preserve and strengthen 
the corporate life of a great people. Its basis is 
greed from one point of view, ambition from an- 
other, but its effective cause in both cases is the 
expression of nationality. Germany, in fact, has 
attained a national consciousness, a national in- 
dividuality, and seeks to insure the continued ex- 
istence of this corporate individual for all time. 
Pan-Germanism is merely self-preservation. This 
new individual, who entered the world through 
the travail of the nineteenth century, is conscious 
of his sturdy strength and of his growing needs, is 
ambitious to improve his own condition and to 
leave to those who come after him a solid guar- 
antee of immunity from the suffering and priva- 
tion that he has endured. Above all, he is filled 
with an uncontrollable determination to establish 
his economic well-being. With growth have come 
new economic wants, which have in turn revealed 
the existence of hitherto unexpected desires, 
clamoring for satisfaction and to be satisfied only 
by the increased wealth which depends in its own 
turn upon the possibility of national expansion. 
Unquestionably, the creation of this corporate 

232 



THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM 

individual is the result of the working of natural 
forces, present in the life of every European com- 
munity, and to whose operation every nation in 
Europe owes that degree of prosperity and cor- 
porate consciousness which it possesses. To a 
greater or less degree, all are actuated by the 
motives which influence Germany. It is by no 
means clear that, if their circumstances were 
identical with hers, they would fail to employ all 
the methods of which she is ready to avail herself. 
Whether or not we are willing to admit that there 
are moral and ethical principles of permanent 
value, absolutely binding upon all individuals 
and communities from century to century, we 
cannot deny that the record of the past amply 
proves that no nation has yet refrained, because 
of moral scruples, from advancing its economic 
or national welfare by any means it could. If 
Germany is wrong, others too have been wrong; 
indeed, if her conduct is imjustifiable, no country 
in the world can establish its moral and ethical 
right to existence. At the same time that we 
recognize the recrudescence of certain factors 
familiar to all situations, we must not be blind to 
the vastly more important fact that the present 
situation is literally without precedent in the his- 
tory of the world. 

The present international situation is the result 

233 



PAN-GERMANISM 

of the economic progress- of the last half -century. 
The improvements in agriculture, in manufactur- 
ing, in transportation, have for the first time since 
man began to write the record of his deeds made 
the world capable of more than keeping itself in 
existence. The increased production of food and 
clothes, entirely beyond any immediate needs of 
the existing community, has stimulated to an 
unprecedented degree the growth of population, 
while the progress of industry and agriculture has 
as constantly out-distanced the increasing popu- 
lation. The satiation of the old economic wants 
of the individual, for food, clothes, and shelter, 
produced inevitably new standards of well-being 
which declared subsistence to be something more 
than the ability to keep alive, and which insisted 
upon a certain excellence of quality in the food 
and clothes, a certain amount of leisure for amuse- 
ment and self -culture, a certain degree of educa- 
tion. The luxuries of preceding centuries became 
necessities. More economic wants appeared. Men 
whose ancestors had been well content with one 
good meal a day and a thatched cottage of one 
room are demanding a house with glass windows 
and three liberal meals a day, including fresh 
meat, beverages, sugar, and butter. While few 
will claim that the new standard is excessive, no 
candid student can deny the astonishing increase 

234 



THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM 

in the number of economic wants never before 
felt by so large a proportion of the community. 
To continue to feed and clothe the growing 
multitudes, to meet the demands imposed upon 
industry and agriculture by the new standards of 
living, an approximate utilization of all the re- 
sources of the community became necessary. In 
the past the vastness of the resources of the globe 
had never been suspected; agriculture had merely 
scratched the ground; mines had been worked 
only where large deposits of comparatively free 
metal lay near the surface; manufacturing, so far 
as the majority of the community was concerned, 
had been confined to the production of rough 
cloth and the absolute essentials of existence. The 
substitution of machines for the thousands of 
hands needed in the past for the performance of 
the same task, the utilization of the resources of 
the community in anything like an adequate way 
for the first time, enabled a part of the community 
to supply the whole with the necessities of life, 
even according to the new standard of living, and, 
therefore, enabled the remainder to devote their 
time to less essential tasks. Many of them turned 
their attention to meeting the new economic 
wants, others occupied their time by still further 
developing the economic possibilities of the com- 
munity. And for the first time in history, it be- 

235 



PAN-GERMANISM 

came possible for vast numbers of men to turn 
their attention solely to the furtherance of the 
community's ambitions. Hitherto no standing 
army of considerable size could be maintained 
in Europe, for the simple reason that so large a 
number of hands could not be spared from the 
fields from which the community derived its 
maintenance. Nor were the transportation facili- 
ties adequate to provide these men with a steady 
supply of food and clothes during the necessary 
period of training. A standing army of hundreds 
of thousands of men, who devote their whole time 
to learning the art of war, and who are maintained 
by the state during their apprenticeship, is a phe- 
nomenon which nothing short of the economic 
progress of the last half -century could have made 
possible. For the first time enough men can be 
spared from the task of keeping the community 
alive to devote themselves to the prosecution of a 
war founded only in aggression. Pan-Germanism 
has been made possible by the economic growth 
of the nineteenth century. 

Paradoxical as it may sound, the internal peace 
of Europe since 1815, except for sporadic out- 
breaks here and there, has intensified in degree 
this new phase of national activity. Hitherto, the 
resources of every country, in men and in food, 
were periodically reduced by famine and pesti- 

^36 



THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM 

lence, and, above all, by the destructive nature 
of war as it was necessarily prosecuted before the 
modern railway made it possible to supply an 
army from a distance. The same lack of trans- 
portation, which forced the soldiers to forage on 
the country, also forced each district of the coun- 
try to depend, almost entirely, in time of peace 
upon its own efforts for its own subsistence. 
Floods, drought, blight, various diseases of cattle, 
produced famine and the inevitable reduction of 
the population, often in the same little community 
not less frequently than twice or thrice within a 
generation. Under these circumstances the abil- 
ity of a country to go to war, to put men into its 
army, to divert them from the fields, even during 
the continuance of the war, depended upon its 
comparative freedom from these artificial meth- 
ods of losing its strength. The comparative peace 
of the last century and the progress of medical 
science, as well as the advance in agriculture and 
industry, have enormously strengthened the na- 
tions of the world by giving them a surplus of 
men and materials, which they can now devote to 
the prosecution of a war of aggression without 
endangering the lives of those already in existence. 
Moreover, this same peace, which has greatly 
contributed to the unprecedented increase of 
population and of wealth, and which has per- 

237 



PAN-GERMANISM 

mitted the devotion of so much time and labor 
to the satisfaction of economic wants which past 
centuries would have considered superficial, is 
in no small measure responsible for that very 
economic pressure of population, that need of an 
outlet for the swelling surplus of manufactures 
which is driving Germany, Austria, and Italy into 
this great scheme of aggression. Their present 
resources, their ability to support themselves h^^ 
the labors of a fraction of the community, which 
permit them to undertake such aggression, are 
the very factors which make expansion inevit- 
able. The interaction and the interrelation of 
these varied economic factors have produced not 
only the impulse but the means of satisfying it. 

The unprecedented growth of population in all 
countries of Europe, which has compelled them 
to utilize their resources as never before, has not 
expanded their boundaries. Germany has sub- 
stantially no more arable land available than in 
1815. The erasure of traditional boundaries, the 
disappearance of administrative and legal factors 
familiar to the past, does not alter the vital fact 
that the Germanic race still occupies to all intents 
and purposes the same territory it held in the 
year 1500. It is, in fact, in the feeling of limitation, 
engendered by the extent to which the present 
natural resources of Europe have been drawn 

238 



THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM 

upon to maintain the economic life of the com- 
munity, that we find the effective explanation of 
the present frenzied desire for expansion. The 
benefits which have accrued both to the individual 
and to the community in well-being, mental as well 
as physical, from this development, are so vast 
that no nation can view, except with dismay, the 
probability of the retardation of its present rate 
of growth. They realize not only that the pre- 
sent rate of development cannot be continued 
in Europe, but that it must necessarily stop alto- 
gether unless the various European nations can 
extend their activities into other portions of the 
globe. It is far from improbable that, at the rate 
of growth during the last century, all land in the 
temperate zone suitable for the home of the pre- 
sent European races may be developed within 
the next century to the point which Europe has 
already reached. Who would have imagined in 
the year 1700 that the continent of North Amer- 
ica could by any possibility have been brought 
within the succeeding two hundred years to prac- 
tically the same point of economic, political, and 
social development which the European nations 
had attained in thousands of years? In fact, it is 
pretty generally felt among the statesmen of the 
leading powers of the world that the present rate 
of expansion cannot continue, and that inevitably 

239 



PAN-GERMANISM 

some nation or nations must fall behind in the 
race for national and individual well-being. 

The progress of transportation, resulting in an 
interdependence of the world and an ease of com- 
munication between the various parts of it which 
has brought all countries into close relations with 
each other, made possible for the first time the 
clash of interests between nations whose territo- 
ries were not contiguous. In the old days a nation 
was intimately concerned only with the policies 
of its immediate neighbors. France, Germany, 
and England were vitally interested in the condi- 
tion of the Netherlands because there all three 
found their common meeting-point. Russia, how- 
ever, cared little for the fate of the Netherlands. 
Now the whole world is necessarily interested in 
the fate of Belgium and Holland, because its 
parts are interdependent and are related to each 
other by the mere fact that they exist on the same 
sphere. There is no limit to the number or loca- 
tion of one's rivals. The spread of national inter- 
ests throughout the world, due to the fact that 
the flag has followed the nation's trade, has fur- 
ther increased the possibilities of disagreement; 
while the interdependence of the economic world 
has multiplied for each country the number of 
interests with which other nations may easily in- 
terfere. As soon as communication with distant 

^40 



THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM 

parts of the world was perfected by means of the 
telegraph, every nation was able to extend its 
interests throughout the globe without losing 
that immediate contact upon which the efficient 
control of dependencies rests. It is literally pos- 
sible for England to govern India, for France to 
rule Morocco, for Russia to direct affairs in Man- 
churia, with a degree of certainty which would 
have astounded Marcus Aurelius or Louis XIV. 
No country, even the smallest, was ever governed 
before the nineteenth century with the degree of 
certainty and efficiency now possible in regulating 
the affairs of the most distant dependencies. The 
steamship and the railway have made it a simple 
matter to reach these remote places, with an ex- 
penditure of time and effort less than used to be 
necessary for the prosecution of trade or war in 
Europe. England provisioned her army in South 
Africa with greater efficiency and dispatch than 
Napoleon fed his armies, operating in Germany, 
from the fields of southern France. Transporta- 
tion, therefore, has not only produced the ability 
of nations to quarrel, but it has allowed them to 
fight their battles in the uttermost parts of the 
world. 

From these same developments in communica- 
tion and in transportation has resulted a great 
increase in administrative efficiency in the home 



PAN-GERMANISM 

countries. The government is now able to locate 
with exactitude the whereabouts of all materials 
and men useful in any emergency. It can meas- 
ure with considerable accuracy the degree of the 
national progress, the amount of surplus strength 
which the nation can probably afford to expend; 
it can foresee with some certainty the probable 
resources of the country for a considerable num- 
ber of years in advance. Louis XIV, on the other 
hand, who is the stock example of an absolute 
monarch employed by most historians, never 
could tell when there would be any money in the 
treasury, nor knew with certainty what his offi- 
cials were doing a hundred miles from Paris. It 
is this possibility of measuring and foreseeing that 
makes possible the formation and execution of 
plans like Pan-Germanism. Without the tele- 
graph, how could an army of a million men pos- 
sibly be summoned to a certain spot for a certain 
date a week distant; without the railway, how 
could they possibly be brought there, fed, shel- 
tered, and maintained during even the few days 
preceding action; how could they possibly be 
maintained without the services of the complex 
modern economic fabric? It is modern science, 
in fact, which makes modern international poli- 
tics a possibility. 

What is more, the telegraph, the printing-press, 

^42 



THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM 

the newspaper, have created the modem nation 
of whose ambition and strength these schemes of 
aggression are merely the expression. The peoples 
of the past centuries lived in isolation, never con- 
scious of what was happening at that same mo- 
ment elsewhere, rarely able to act in concert for 
lack of that knowledge. The great movements of 
history have been limited to small areas, to a few 
men, because of the impossibility of securing the 
cooperation of a greater number. Time used to 
be absolutely a prerequisite for any movement 
whatever, and there was no means of promptly 
communicating with every one, or of discovering, 
soon enough to be of practical value, the senti- 
ments of different sections of the community. 
The intensification of national feeling, — one 
might almost say the creation for the first time of 
a truly national feeling, — the possibility for the 
first time of so large an aggregation of individuals 
having anything resembling unity of thought and 
feeling, has created the present crisis and is its 
most salient feature. Each nation, thus more 
acutely conscious of itself and more keenly con- 
scious of the conditions which support it, has 
become more acutely conscious of others and 
has felt more keenly the differences in develop- 
ment, in economic status, in intellectual progress, 
in artistic achievement, which distinguish it from 

^43 



PAN-GERMANISM 

its neighbors. The extent and possible variety of 
interests are dawning upon the national conscious- 
ness for perhaps the first time with anything like 
adequacy, and with it, also for the first time, 
there is dawning in the minds of all nations some 
faint adumbration of the glorious national future 
before a people capable, really and literally, of 
acting, thinking, and feeling as one. Indeed, the 
vision has roused men from the contemplation of 
their own petty doings and lifted them into a 
sphere broader and more impersonal. For a great 
people, who had become conscious of such a unity 
of feeling, of such a dependence upon each other, 
and of the possibilities of united action, nothing 
is more normal than to attempt, by the exercise 
of forethought, to increase the strength, capacity, 
and influence of this corporate body, to knit it 
more firmly together, to place it upon a still more 
solid basis of economic prosperity. Nor is it 
strange that the first ecstasy of national conscious- 
ness should have brought with it fears for its own 
continuance and a passionate desire to insure that 
continuance for all time. Indeed, it is probably no 
exaggeration to claim that the present aggressive 
schemes of most European nations are soberly 
intended to preserve what exists rather than to 
increase it, even though by preservation they 
mean no mere continued existence, but the abso- 

244 



THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM 

lute assurance of the existence of a prosperous, 
enlightened nation for the rest of time. 

One trouble which most students seem to ex- 
perience in attempting to judge the present crisis 
arises from the tendency to assume that the great- 
est good is to be insured by the preservation of the 
conditions now in existence. One might almost 
say that the advocates of peace tend to regard 
the present status quo as the end and object of 
the process of evolution. They seem, in fact, to 
oppose, or at least to deprecate, the persistent 
attempts of mankind to accelerate the pace of 
civilization, and to desire to limit the tools which 
men are to use in the future to economic weapons. 
Probably this phase of contemporary thought is 
a part of the natural reaction from the logical 
consequences of the doctrine of evolution as 
expounded by Spencer. To their thinking, the 
relegation of the influence exerted by moral and 
ethical forces to the second rank proceeds from a 
failure to appreciate their real force, and they are 
consequently drawn into an aggressive assertion 
of the superiority of mind over matter, of the 
spiritual over the physical, among those varied 
forces to whose operation the development of 
society has been due. One can hardly study the 
modem situation, however, without becoming 
keenly aware that the difference between war and 

S45 



PAN-GERMANISM 

peace, as the words are ordinarily used, is rather 
one of degree and of outward form than of pur- 
pose. The nations of the world have unquestion- 
ably been busy for the last half -century with the 
determined attempt to surpass each other, to get 
possession of things which they did not have 
already, by methods which rest certainly upon 
the same ethical foundation that war does, and 
whose results upon the individual, and even upon 
nations, are not necessarily different in kind from 
those of actual warfare. To be sure, the financial 
operations known as peaceful penetration are not 
exactly what we have been accustomed to consider 
methods of violent conquest; but by such means 
large numbers of the inhabitants of the smaller 
countries have just as certainly lost their land and 
the products of their labor as if an army had 
destroyed them. There is perhaps a nice discrimi- 
nation to be drawn by some logician between tak- 
ing a man's property away from him or stealing a 
nation's independence by means of an army and 
by means of high finance; but if the individual 
or the nation suffers the same loss from both pro- 
cesses, and if the intent is essentially the same, 
it is difiScult to see where the ethical grounds sup- 
porting them differ. If it would be wicked for 
Germany to enter Belgium with an army and take 
possession of the country, seizing the revenues and 

246 



THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM 

compelling the Belgians to accept from them loans 
of money at such terms that the Belgians would 
practically lose possession of their own govern- 
ment for half a century to come, why is it more 
moral for France to obtain the same results in 
Morocco, or for the United States in a similar 
manner to secure possession of Mexico and Central 
America, so that the inhabitants have scarcely 
anything left to call their own but their very lives? 
Indeed, there are more ways of conquest than 
fighting, and more methods of. robbery than the 
Middle Ages were familiar with. 

It must be admitted in all candor that the im- 
pulses behind Pan-Germanism exist at present 
in all nations, and that no nation is likely at pre- 
sent to forego the possibility of future develop- 
ment because of even the most plausible ethical or 
logical pleas. The three nations, who have entered 
into the promotion of Pan-Germanism, are not 
different from the others in morals or in aims. 
Their geographical position, their peculiar eco- 
nomic fabric, the traditions of their past, all force 
upon them the aggressive part and make imme- 
diate action desirable. England, France, Russia, 
and the United States already possess the choice 
places in the world; their position is already 
everything they could reasonably hope to have it; 
and they scarcely deserve to be praised for unsel- 

247 



PAN-GERMANISM 

fishness when they insist upon preserving a situa- 
tion which is so very much to their advantage. 
Obviously, their national existence and ambition 
will be best furthered by the continuance of the 
status quo, because they will thus be able to keep 
what they already hold. Nor is it proved that 
they have obtained it by the observance of the 
ethical precepts which they would now be glad 
to apply to Germany; they secured their empires, 
in fact, by precisely those methods which Ger- 
many wishes to use against them. It is as selfish 
for them to insist upon peace as it is for the Ger- 
mans to demand war. In reality, the difference of 
opinion as to the proper procedure for settling the 
difficulty is not based upon ethical concepts at all. 
It merely means that the Triple Entente prefers 
to employ in the struggle only the economic and 
financial weapons in whose use they are already 
adepts and of which they already possess so many 
more than their rivals as to make the outcome of 
the struggle, if fought on this basis, practically 
positive to be in their favor. The Triple Entente, 
in fact, like the good Doctor Franchard, have de- 
rived their philosophy from their desires, and have 
painted a picture of the millennium of peace whose 
lineaments are necessarily those of their present 
condition. Germany, Austria, and Italy, conscious 
of their disadvantage on the economic plane, are 

248 



THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM 

anxious to employ in the coming duel a different 
type of weapon, in whose use they believe them- 
selves more expert than are their enemies. 

One might almost compare the two coalitions 
with a trained swordsman and a countryman who 
have somehow gotten into a quarrel. The swords- 
man wishes to settle the point of honor by a duel 
with rapiers under limitations which require the 
combatants to employ only one arm and to use 
only the point, to attack only after due warning, 
and not to press the adversary to the utmost. 
These conditions condemn the countryman to 
defeat. He wishes to fight with his fists, to hit 
wherever he can and as often as possible, to give 
no quarter, and to continue the fight until one or 
the other is exhausted. The swordsman, gazing 
upon the brawny figure of his opponent, is afraid 
that, in a struggle of that nature, he might not be 
successful, and hesitates to stake his all upon a 
rough-and-tumble battle. He insists upon fight- 
ing like a gentleman, and talks about honor, and 
ethics, and the obligations of civilization. The 
countryman sees plainly enough that all this is in- 
tended to rob him of an advantage, and he, there- 
fore, declines to be bound by a variety of ethics or 
a code of morals which necessarily condemn him 
to defeat. 

So of the two coalitions; the Triple Entente, 



PAN-GERMANISM 

with so much to lose, is most anxious to avoid an 
appeal to fisticuffs, and wishes, if possible, to limit 
the weapons, and thus the extent of defeat. The 
Triple Alliance, with little likelihood of succeed- 
ing, but with nearly everything to gain if it 
should succeed, is a great deal more willing to 
appeal to the ultimate arbitrament of war. As 
a matter of fact, they regard war as their last 
chance. They have fought the Triple Entente 
with economic weapons for a good deal more than 
a generation and are not yet within measurable 
distance of victory. If, then, we regard the truth 
as a concept which becomes gradually visible as 
we study the record of the past, if moral concepts 
are not those which men proclaim but those by 
which they live, we shall be forced to admit that 
the Triple Alliance is not morally worse than the 
Triple Entente. Certainly, the validity of such 
standards in such circumstances as their adver- 
saries wish to apply has never yet been admitted 
by any nation within the ken of history. The 
Germans refuse, therefore, to accept an adverse 
judgment based upon standards which cannot 
claim general acceptance by the Congress of 
Nations. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE PROBABILITY OF THE SUCCESS OF 
PAN-GERMANISM 

7. Internal Weaknesses 

THE most interesting phase of the present 
international situation to the vast majority 
of people comprises those considerations which 
serve in one way or another as indications of the 
probable success or failure of the schemes at pre- 
sent advocated by the two great coalitions. As 
has already been said, the success of Pan-Ger- 
manism will depend upon the truth or falsity of the 
German notions of the situation in Europe, upon 
the verity of their ideas regarding the proportional 
strength of the various nations and the adequacy 
of the methods they have devised for taking ad- 
vantage of what they believe to be a superior 
position. In the chapters devoted to an exposition 
of the German view of the present situation, the 
factors in their favor were described as fully as 
is possible in so brief an account as this. Nor is 
there a great deal of doubt in the impartial stu- 
dent's mind regarding the substantial truth of the 
propositions there laid down. The strong points 

251 



PAN-GERMANISM 

of the German ease are naturally those whose 
truth is not likely to be contested, and, in order 
to put the case forcibly enough to carry convic- 
tion to the ordinary Anglo-Saxon, it seemed bet- 
ter to group strong facts and to postpone for the 
time a discussion of weaknesses. While it is prob- 
able that the Germans exaggerate the degree of 
their own strength and the extent of England's 
weakness, while it is probable that they rely too 
much upon the assumed difference in efficiency 
between their administration and that of France 
and Russia, it cannot be gainsaid by a candid 
observer that on the whole the Germans' notion 
of the proportional supremacy of the various 
nations and in particular their ideas of English 
history are substantially correct. Indeed, no one 
has stated these propositions with greater force 
than Professor Seeley, whose "Expansion of 
England" appeared at just the time when Pan- 
Germanism was in the making. England is no 
longer defended by the Channel as she once was; 
she certainly never took possession of her depend- 
encies by actual conquest, nor does she retain 
possession by means of physical force; the self- 
governing colonies are manifestly without geo- 
graphical contiguity, and have been independent 
in all but name for the better part of a century. 
The weakness of England's long chain of strate- 

252 



INTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

gic points has always been apparent to Its pos- 
sessor; but, so long as it served the purpose for 
which it was constructed, there was no reason for 
abandoning it simply because certain conditions 
might render it vulnerable. 

The Germans also correctly appreciate the fact 
that an English victory in a naval war will simply 
maintain the position which she already holds; a 
defeat they also see will be fatal to her; in a naval 
war she has comparatively little to gain, while 
they may win everything. To their thinking this 
balances the scales very much in their favor. To 
reach them, the English must have recourse to land 
warfare for which they are not really fitted, and 
not well placed, since the true base of the English 
position against Germany, so far as the offensive 
is concerned, is the frontier between Germany and 
Belgium and Holland. From a military point of 
view, the seizure of these two countries by Ger- 
many at the moment of the outbreak of war would 
move the Germans into what is properly speaking 
English territory and demolish important obsta- 
cles in the way of an attack upon England's most 
vital spot. There seems to be some truth in the 
German view that Russia and France are not as 
capable as she of utilizing their full resources 
with promptitude. It is extremely probable that 
most nations in the world would be very glad to 

253 



PAN-GERMANISM 

assist in looting the British Empire. Certainly 
the German scheme for taking possession of her 
own lands and factories, which have been devel- 
oped with borrowed money, has been executed 
before in similar cases with undoubtedly disas- 
trous results to the borrowers. It has never been 
consciously attempted on so huge a scale. The 
potency of the economic weapons which she be- 
lieves can be brought to bear upon England and 
France is undoubted, but there seem to be a good 
many diflSculties in the way of putting such forces 
into effective operation. In short, on its face the 
German scheme is not only feasible but conclusive. 
Theoretically there are no flaws. 

In attempting to render judgment upon so stu- 
pendous an enterprise, we must not forget that, 
as students, we are really not in a position to 
render more than an approximate judgment, be- 
cause we cannot be at all certain that we know all 
the essential details, or that we know the truth 
about factors of such evident importance as the 
eflBciency of armies and navies, the real economic 
strength of the countries, the actual situation of 
forts and batteries. We cannot in the nature of 
things have more than an approximate idea of the 
scheme itself or of the conditions on which it is 
based, and we therefore must be content with a 
very approximate judgment. The really satisfac- 

^54 



INTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

tory evidence in favor of the feasibility of Pan- 
Germanism is to be found in the obvious fact that 
the statesmen and diplomats of Europe, who know 
more about the situation than historians ever 
will, believe that its success is probable. There 
can be no doubt that the leaders in Germany, 
Austria, and Italy have believed in the certainty 
of its eventual success for more than a generation. 
The evident fears and public avowals of imminent 
danger threatening the members of the Triple 
Entente is conclusive proof that they too consider 
it feasible.^ Another earnest of its possibility is 
to be found in the degree of completion already 
attained. In the fall of the year 1912 it looked 
for a week or two as if the Pan-German confed- 
eration had actually come into existence. It was 
certainly within measurable distance of comple- 
tion. Than this no better evidence is available. 

When, however, we write of the success of Pan- 
Germanism, we mean something more complex 
than at first may appear. Pan-Germanism in- 
volves the creation of the confederation of states 
which it intends to make the controlling factor 
in international politics; it involves, in the next 
place, the ability of this confederation to get con- 

1 See the speech of Premier Borden of Canada advocating a new 
naval policy and the Official Memorandum of the English Admiralty 
on England's present and future naval position, both of which are 
printed in the Appendix. 

^55 



PAN-GERMANISM 

trol of the world or at least to defeat England; 
it further assumes the feasibility of maintaining 
control and of preserving its own existence against 
internal as well as external foes. The Germans 
are apparently ready to assume the ease of creat- 
ing the confederation and devote their attention 
chiefly to the possibility of securing control of the 
world, should they succeed in developing their own 
offensive strength in the manner proposed. All 
the conditions advanced about England's weak- 
ness and the inefficiency of France and Russia 
bear upon the second of these three propositions, 
and have little or nothing to do with the first and 
third. This is the real weakness of Pan-German- 
ism. If we are not led astray by the fact that 
we probably are not permitted to know as much 
about the German plans for accomplishing the 
first and third of these objects as they are ready to 
tell us about the premises upon which the second 
depends, it is upon this rock that the scheme will 
probably be wrecked. It cannot be too often said, 
however, that the statements in regard to the 
weakness of her enemies have been promulgated 
with a frequency and decisiveness, which lends 
color to the assumption that they were made with 
official sanction for the sake of the moral effect 
that they would have in Germany and particularly 
in other parts of the world. Undoubtedly, the 

256 



INTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

difficulties of creating the confederation at all are 
better known in Berlin and Vienna than we can 
possibly envisage them; the certain difficulties of 
maintaining control of the world, once it is ob- 
tained, cannot fail to have caused the statesmen 
of the Triple Alliance many anxious hours. Natu- 
rally, they are less ready to call attention to such 
aspects of the plan than they are to the more obvi- 
ous factors where the verdict of history and the 
testimony of their own enemies prove them to be 
right. 

Pan-Germanism, in fact, is weakest at its centre. 
Its success is least probable at home. Without 
the cooperation of Austria and Italy, the scheme 
is impossible, and scarcely two generations ago 
the enmity between the three allies led them into 
war with each other. Austria and Prussia have 
hated each other throughout history with a vigor 
scarcely surpassed by the hatred which Prussia 
bears France. Indeed, when Bismarck was first 
in Vienna he doubted his own safety. The Italians 
have by no means lost their distrust of Austria, 
and it is really probable that the first successes 
gained by the alliance may result in such acces- 
sions of strength to one or more of the allies as 
to rouse the jealousies and apprehensions of the 
others. The notion of putting into Austria's 
hands the whole eastern coast of the Adriatic 

^7 



PAN-GERMANISM 

is extremely distasteful to Italy, and certainly 
would place Austria in a strong position, from 
which the conquest of the Po Valley would be 
undoubtedly feasible. There are vital differences, 
therefore, between the three contracting countries. 
Moreover, Prussia and Austria are thoroughly 
well hated in southern Germany. The comic 
papers of Munich are fond of printing scandal- 
ous cartoons and squibs about the emperors; it is 
popularly supposed that neither emperor would 
dare venture into southern Germany without a 
large bodyguard. It must not be forgotten that 
the German Constitution gives the southern 
states important military privileges, which could 
not fail to be of consequence in time of war. 
Furthermore, southern Germany controls import- 
ant approaches to Alsace, the passes through 
Switzerland, and the whole upper half of the 
Rhine and Danube valleys. In Alsace and Lor- 
raine public feeling against Prussia is exceedingly 
strong; at a recent public meeting, an official 
openly turned the Emperor's statue with its face to 
the wall amid pretty general and open expressions 
of approval. The recent erection and dedication 
of a German statue at Metz, commemorating 
battles of the Franco-Prussian War, was, to say 
the least, unfortunate in its effect upon public 
opinion. The incidents given by Stevenson in 

258 



INTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

his "Inland Voyage" are enlightening as to the 
sentiments of the people who occupy the strate- 
gic point of greatest importance to Prussia: "In 
the morning a hawker and his wife went down the 
street at a foot pace singing to a very slow, lament- 
able music, *0 France, mes amours.' It brought 
everybody to the door, and when our landlady 
called in the man to buy the words, he had not a 
copy of them left. ... I have watched a forester 
from Alsace, while some one was singing ' Les mal- 
heurs de la France,' at a baptismal party. . . . He 
arose from the table and took his son aside, close 
by where I was standing. 'Listen, listen,' he said, 
bearing on the boy's shoulder, *and remember 
this, my son.' A little after he went out into the 
garden suddenly, and I could hear him sobbing 
in the darkness. In what other country will you 
find a patriotic ditty bring all the world into the 
street.?" 

The efficiency of Austria in the coming genera- 
tion, the possibility of maintaining its position in 
Europe and of contributing strength to the Triple 
Alliance, depend upon the ability of the present 
rulers to maintain the present relations between 
Austria and Hungary and between the various 
sections of the Austrian Empire. There is per- 
haps no part of Europe where racial feeling is so 
intense or where so many races are juxtaposited. 

259 



PAN-GERMANISM 

Their quarrels have filled the history of Europe 
with discord; the number of irreconcilables, who 
wish to overthrow the present government and 
to substitute for it anything else whatever, is 
extremely large, and seems to be increasing rather 
than decreasing. Hungary hates Austria; Bo- 
hemia wishes to be independent; the Slavs and 
Croatians in the southwest have agitated inde- 
pendence for generations; the Ruthenes and the 
Poles in the northeast are equally determined to 
submit to Austrian rule no longer than they must. 
In Hungary, the struggle of the Magyars to retain 
their racial supremacy is of the keenest, and con- 
stantly results in violent outbreaks and riots.* 
So slight a thing as the posting of a sign in one 
language or another over a railway station has 
been known to result in a riot of nearly the pro- 
portions of a civil war. Recently when the Italian 
students at the University of Vienna undertook 
to celebrate one of their national holidays, the 
German and the Austrian students attempted to 
put a stop to it by force. The police interfered; 
were met by armed resistance from the students; 
and it was for some days doubtful whether peace 
could be preserved by the military in one of 
the greatest capitals in Europe. Surely a pitched 

* "Even in quiet times the Magyar will get the gypsies to play 
him the song, 'The German is a blackguard.'" Bismarck, ReJUc' 
tions and Reminiscences, ii, 257. 

260 



INTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

battle between Italians, Austrians, and Germans 
arising out of racial and national feeling, fought 
in the streets of Vienna, is a sinister omen in the 
path of Pan-Germanism. It has been widely pro- 
claimed by both the initiated and the uninitiated 
that Austria-Hungary has been held together for 
more than a decade simply because the various 
warring elements have been waiting for the death 
of the present Emperor to give the signal for re- 
volt. Surely, when the student considers the re- 
lative international weakness or national strength 
of the countries of Europe, it will be difficult for 
him to value Austria-Hungary at anything above 
the minimum figure. 

The great district known as the Balkans is an 
absolutely essential factor of the Pan-German 
confederation, yet there is no part of all Europe 
which lacks more conspicuously geographical, 
political, and racial unity. The Balkans include 
all the land stretching from the water parting of 
the Tyrolese and Transylvanian Alps to the Med- 
iterranean and the iEgean, — the rich plains of 
the Lower Danube, the tablelands and mountain 
valleys of Macedonia and Servia, the wild crags 
of Montenegro and Albania. The people range 
from stolid peasantry in the valleys to wild, 
scarcely civilized hillmen in the west and the in- 
telligent cultivated citizens of Sofia and Athens. 

261 



PAN-GERMANISM 

The racial admixture is extraordinary in its 
variety and distribution. There are many dis- 
tricts where no single race can boast predomin- 
ance. For centuries the Balkans have been the 
seat of the most intense religious hatred in Eu- 
rope and are the only states where active war- 
fare still continues between the Christian and 
the Infidel and between the Latin and Greek 
Churches. There are not a few districts where, 
as in Albania, the Mohammedan, the Greek 
Christian, and the Catholic live so near one an- 
other as to result in constant reprisals which keep 
the community in a condition of alarm and anx- 
iety. The problem of creating amid such con- 
ditions, out of such varied races, whose religious 
and racial hatreds and antipathies are so intense, 
a strong series of states which will act in concert 
with the Triple Alliance in the execution of so 
complicated a scheme as Pan-Germanism, would 
seem to the observer to border upon impossibility. 
The Balkans hate each other so cordially, the 
states which have attained politicial existence 
contain within their own borders so many ele- 
ments of discord, that it might almost be claimed 
that the only elements of unity are the vigorous 
hatred that they all bear the Turk and the in- 
tense suspicion with which they all regard Austria 
and Russia. 

262 



INTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

Yet, through these defiles run the great roads 
connecting Europe and Asia, along which the 
trade of centuries has passed, and which must still 
continue to be the channels of overland commun- 
ication with the East. The Balkans hold the east- 
ern side of the Adriatic, the western shore of the 
Black Sea, the whole lower course of the Danube, 
and two sides of the ^gean. If the Triple Alli- 
ance ever expects to obtain a position of import- 
ance in the Mediterranean, it must possess them. 
Yet the dream of the peoples in those valleys and 
plains is for autonomy, freedom from European 
interference, the exclusion of the religious, strate- 
gic, political interests of other nations, the recog- 
nition of their right to live for themselves. To 
use these peoples in the formation of the Pan- 
German confederation means and will continue to 
mean their armament by Austria and Germany, 
the financing of their preparations for war, — in 
fact, the placing in their hands of weapons which 
will be exactly as useful against the Triple Alli- 
ance as against the Triple Entente. The creation 
in the Balkans of a confederation of states of the 
type desired by Austria and Germany is perhaps 
possible and may be, indeed, feasible; but the 
preservation of the control of the Triple Alliance 
over those states, once created, the ability of the 
statesmen in Berlin and Vienna to rouse in those 

^63 



PAN-GERMANISM 

peoples any enthusiasm for Pan-Germanism, 
seems highly improbable. At the present moment 
of writing, it looks as if a confederation hostile 
to the Triple Alliance had been formed, which 
is probably strong enough to maintain itself for 
some decades. The conquest of the Balkans by 
Austria would be no easy matter. The land itself 
is a natural fortress, improved by Austrian and 
German engineers in all those varied ways which 
modern warfare has made possible, and the bat- 
teries have been erected on the borders between 
Austria and the Balkans as well as on the south. 
This was the price which the Balkan States de- 
manded in exchange for the cooperation which 
they promised : they must be provided with wea- 
pons which would assure their independence even 
of Austria. The people are natural soldiers, care- 
fully drilled, well equipped, flushed at present 
with victory, and fired with the determination to 
maintain their independence against all comers. 
Nothing could possibly be more detrimental to 
the interests of Pan-Germanism, and it seems to 
be a difficulty which nothing short of years can 
remove. The position of the Balkans, should 
they maintain it, would be definitive in bringing 
about the failure of Pan-Germanism. 

The last link in the German chain, the first one 
they attempted to create, is Turkey. The natural 

264 



INTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

ineptitude of the Turkish Government has be- 
come a byword of statesmen; the Turks are alien 
in race and religion to the majority of the subject 
peoples; their hatred for the Christians is still in- 
tense; and the difficulty, therefore, of conducting 
operations through their hands is great. That, 
however, might be overcome had the Turk con- 
tinued supine. The real difficulty which at pre- 
sent stands in the way of the establishment of 
German control in Turkey is the rise among the 
Turks of a national party whose chief aim is the 
exclusion of the foreigner and the government of 
Turkey solely in the interest of the Turk. Under 
this banner have been enlisted the majority, at 
any rate, of the Turks intelligent enough to be en- 
trusted with the administration of their own coun- 
try. The mere fact that they are an insignfficant 
minority of the population, that the rest of the 
Turks have no effective desire for self-govern- 
ment and are certainly not capable of it, does not 
in the least change the significant fact that the 
only Turks who might govern their country, as 
the Germans wish it done, decline the task. In- 
deed, the Young Turks assisted the German 
plans and created the present government, with 
the idea that Germany would allow them to rule 
the rest of their countrymen. Tkeir disappoint- 
ment w^as exceedingly bitter when they learned 

265 



PAN-GERMANISM 

that the real direction of policy and the control 
of finance was to rest with the German officials in 
Constantinople. The probable disappearance of 
European Turkey as a result of the Balkan War 
will certainly increase the diflficulty the Germans 
have already experienced. 

The problem of Pan-Germanism in Turkey is 
not as serious as it is in Austria, in Hungary, and 
in the Balkans. In fact, Pan-Germanism itself is 
a coalition of coalitions in the most literal sense of 
the word. Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Bal- 
kans, Turkey, are none of them states where the 
racial lines have been unified, the religious antipa- 
thies even minimized, and the state or adminis- 
tration able to rely upon the support and affec- 
tion of the whole people. Out of such material, 
Pan-Germanism proposes to create another con- 
federation, whose basis will be even more slender 
than that of any of the confederations out of 
which it is to be made, and whose continued exist- 
ence will necessarily be daily exposed to the as- 
saults of internal enemies. A vital change in any 
one of the confederations composing it would in 
all probability have fatal effect upon the greater 
entity. 

It is not too much to say that the success of 
the whole scheme depends absolutely upon the 
stability and efficiency of Germany and Austria. 

^66 



INTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

Nay, the continuance even of the attempt to exe- 
cute the scheme is contingent upon the continu- 
ance in office of those who are at present directing 
the policy of those states and upon their ability 
to dictate the disposition of the national resources. 
The continuity of policy is an absolutely indis- 
pensable part of Pan-Germanism; yet there are 
no countries in Europe where the forces strug- 
gling to effect fundamental alterations in consti- 
tutional, administrative, and political conditions, 
are more persistent and more powerful, and which 
possess greater chances of success. The number 
of irreconcilables, which means to the European 
the number of those who regard the very existence 
of the state as a fundamental grievance which 
nothing except its destruction can remedy, is very 
large, and comprises considerable sections of the 
population, who occupy important strategic posi- 
tions, and who elect without difficulty numerous 
representatives to the assemblies. The Socialists 
in Germany are exceedingly strong, are growing 
in numbers at a portentous rate, and are rapidly 
outstripping the other parties in the Prussian 
houses and in the Reichstag; they already practi- 
cally control the city of Berlin and comprise the 
numerical majority in many other cities. The 
Opposition in the Austrian and Hungarian Parlia- 
ments is so strong that the business of the session 

267 



PAN-GERMANISM 

frequently has to be suspended for days and 
weeks, and it has more than once been necessary 
to break the deadlock by calling in the military 
to remove the obstructionists, before any busi- 
ness could be done. The system of representa- 
tion, provided by the constitutions of these na- 
tions, permits most of the people to vote, but 
evaluates the individual vote on the basis of pro- 
perty and education. The adoption of universal 
suffrage of the English, French, or American pat- 
tern would promptly throw into a hopeless minor- 
ity the parties which now control those states and 
practically reverse their policies in every particu- 
lar. The oflScial proclamation of the Socialist 
Party in Germany declares the present aggressive 
stand of Germany wrong. It is perhaps not with- 
out significance that the most popular party in 
Germany takes upon the question of Pan-Ger- 
manism the attitude of the irreconcilable, and, 
because it involves war, declares the very nature 
of the scheme inexpedient and undesirable. All 
of these influences may not actually be powerful 
enough to prevent the present rulers from making 
the nominal alliances which will put Pan-Ger- 
manism in the arena, but it is scarcely probable 
that they will not have an exceedingly important 
effect upon its stability and its continuity of pol- 
icy. That Pan-Germanism can be created is not 

268 



INTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

perhaps to be gainsaid; that such a confedera- 
tion could perhaps inflict a crushing blow upon 
the Triple Entente is quite within the bounds 
of probability; but that Pan-Germanism, resting 
upon such a basis, can long withstand the assault 
of its internal and external enemies seems utterly 
improbable. 

The greatest genius of the English has been 
their skill in diplomacy, the keenness with which 
they have ordinarily analyzed the situation, and 
the great ability they have shown in expounding 
its various possibilities to the disorderly elements 
in Europe. They have won their present position, 
as the English historians have forcibly pointed 
out, by taking advantage of the mutual jealousies 
and rivalries of Europe. Time and time again a 
great coalition has been actually put into the field 
against them, only to be rent apart by English 
diplomacy. The Germans assume that the pos- 
sibility of repeating such feats of diplomacy has 
been dissipated by the alterations in the politi- 
cal structure of Germany, Austria, and Italy, or 
by the reduction of England's relative strength. 
Yet, it is far from true that England is isolated 
in the world; she possesses three immensely pow- 
erful allies in France, Russia, and the United 
States; that coalition already holds in its hands 
the greater part of the habitable globe, and con- 

269 



PAN-GERMANISM 

trols the oceans, the major part of the economic 
resources of the entire world, and practically its 
whole financial fabric. The fundamental error 
Germany has committed has been to suppose, 
that because the position of England in the world 
is vitally altered, because England can no longer 
be maintained in her proud predominance by the 
factors which originally created it, that there are 
no factors of prime importance to maintain it. 
The truth seems to be that the English position 
has been changed in nature but not in essence. 
Because she does not rely upon factors to-day 
which were conclusive in their effect upon Euro- 
pean politics three centuries ago, their present 
worthlessness must not be construed as the total 
absence of all strength. In this particular, how- 
ever, nothing is changed. The condition of Eu- 
rope itself, in which English diplomacy has so 
invariably found weapons for the defense of the is- 
land kingdom, to-day presents to as great a degree 
as ever before a tangle of conflicting interests and 
traditional antipathies, in which the English are 
more than likely in their habitual manner to find 
the solution for their present diflficulties. If it is 
true that England's strength has been due to the 
balance of power in Europe rather than to her own 
physical resources, the prime condition for the con- 
tinuance of her authority is still in existence. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE PROBABILITY OF THE SUCCESS OP 
PAN-GERMANISM 

II, External Weaknesses 

WHEN the Germans prate of the willingness 
of the world to join them in the hope of 
looting the British Empire, they seem to suppose 
that the English and the French will tamely sit 
still and allow them to bring their plans to per- 
fection. Something has already been said in a 
previous chapter about Italy's position in the 
Mediterranean, her fear of Austria, and, in gen- 
eral, her lack of that same vital interest in Pan- 
Germanism which her two allies undoubtedly 
possess. While the great scheme is probably the 
most plausible and feasible ever suggested for 
the preservation and expansion of Germany and 
Austria, there are many other possibilities before 
Italy. She has already proved in the case of the 
Tripolitan War that she has her price and is 
by no means bound to the Triple Alliance with 
eternal chains. Suppose now that England and 
France should increase their offer to her and 
should be able to fulfill it, would she still cling to 

271 



PAN-GERMANISM 

Pan-Germanism, and could it be completed with- 
out her assistance and with her opposition? Sup- 
pose France offered Spain a part of Morocco; 
that England offered Italy Egypt in addition to 
Tripoli, reserving only the right of free passage 
through the Suez Canal and the control of the 
Red Sea; that the Triple Entente guaranteed the 
autonomy of Greece and the Balkan States, and 
secured from Russia the suspension at least of her 
claims to territorial expansion in that district, 
in exchange for at least the right of free passage 
through the Straits and the control of the Black 
Sea; suppose that they offered the Young Turks 
control of Asia Minor, with financial support for 
their government, in exchange for the commercial 
privileges of the Baghdad Railway and the right 
to irrigate Mesopotamia; suppose England and 
Russia offered the Persians autonomy in exchange 
for a monopoly of trade and the right to construct 
the Trans-Persian Railway; would not the situa- 
tion be materially altered? Would not the Triple 
Entente be more than likely to assure itself of the 
permanent support of these states whose adher- 
ence is absolutely essential to Pan-Germanism? 
Would the Pan-German Confederation, even if 
actually created, be proof against such offers, 
when the Triple Entente could without exaggera- 
tion promise to every one of those states such 

272 



EXTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

privileges as the price of their support, with the 
certainty that their desertion would so completely 
destroy the confederation and weaken Germany 
and Austria as to make actual war impossible? 
Truth to tell, the Triple Entente would prefer to 
keep all it has; but is it not a purely gratuitous 
assumption to suppose that they will be so blind 
as not to see that by parting with some of it they 
might easily insure their possession of the re- 
mainder for another couple of generations? 

While the Germans have correctly read the his- 
tory of the British Empire and have appreciated 
to the full the importance of the assistance of the 
native races in creating the present position held 
by England, they seem to believe that the English 
power at present has no other basis than that 
which it possessed in the beginning. They forget 
the ability with which the English have ruled 
India, the undeniable benefits which they have 
conferred upon the Hindu, the fact that the com- 
mon people have for the first time been treated 
with what we should call decency, accorded jus- 
tice, and allowed to retain a sufl5cient proportion 
of their produce to live upon. However true may 
be the tales of oppression in India that Germany 
and Russia have industriously collected and 
spread, they are certainly insignificant compared 
to the oppression and suffering visited upon that 

273 



PAN-GERMANISM 

unhappy land since before the time when history 
was. The wave of democracy, which is sweeping 
on into the Orient, has not escaped the Hindus; 
but a most careful investigation of the question 
by disinterested students has yet failed to re- 
veal any very considerable number of Hindus 
who believe the varied races huddled together in 
India capable of governing themselves. The Eng- 
lish have appreciated (and so far as we can tell 
with absolute justice) the fact that the democratic 
movement in India is the work of one race and 
one religion, which would be glad to rule over the 
other races and the other religions. It is not, 
therefore, difficult to demonstrate to the Hindu 
of the Brahmin caste the undesirability of being 
ruled by the Mohammedans, while the latter are 
by no means enthusiastic about being ruled by 
the Brahmin. Each is zealous about obtaining 
for his own sect the right to govern India; each 
is as unwilling to be ruled by other Hindu sects, 
who do not agree with him in religion, as he is to 
have the present English rule continued. When 
it is simple to demonstrate to them all that the 
departure of the English will certainly not result 
in the government of India by any native race or 
sect, but in its conquest by Russia or Germany, 
the desire of the Hindus and Mohammedans for 
the expulsion of the English is necessarily much 

274 



EXTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

modified. So clear have the English made these 
facts to those natives who alone are capable, either 
from their ability or from their position, of under- 
taking such a movement, that the likelihood of 
any revolt against the English in India is small 
and the faithful support of the native princes 
firmly assured, at any rate, so long as the pre- 
sent international situation continues. Suppose 
that the international situation should suddenly 
change, that, for any one of fifty reasons, the 
expulsion of all foreigners from India should seem 
probable, would not the English then be in a 
position to offer the natives, in exchange for the 
trade monopoly they have always had and to 
which the native does not apparently seriously 
object, their assistance in securing and maintain- 
ing actual autonomy? Would not the Germans or 
the Russians be met by a very different sort of a 
force than the beggarly thousands of Englishmen 
whom they affect so to despise? In fact, to snatch 
India from a few thousand Englishmen with the 
assistance of the Hindu is one thing; to conquer 
India from the English and the Hindu combined, 
in the face of a century of admirable adminis- 
tration by England and the promise of practical 
autonomy for the native states in the future, 
would be a very different thing. If one is emi- 
nently feasible, the other is exceedingly improb- 

275 



PAN-GERMANISM 

able; and the facts of the situation, so far as they 
can be learned, seem to indicate with precision 
that the latter is the truth. 

The Germans have made much of the lack 
of common economic interests between England 
and her self-governing colonies because of the 
distances which sunder them. As a matter of 
fact, it is easier to-day to carry on trade with New 
Zealand at a distance of over twelve thousand 
miles — it is possible to send that distance com- 
modities that until the last half-century were 
never shipped at all — than it was before the 
year 1850 to carry on trade overland between 
Berlin and Munich. Nor are the freight charges 
in one case probably much in excess of those in 
the other. Certainly the time consumed does not 
so greatly differ. Most people forget with ease 
the common facts of history concerning the length 
of time consumed by journeys undertaken with- 
out the aid of the railway. While the analogy 
must not be too closely pressed, it is substantially 
true that the economic tie between England and 
her colonies is probably quite as close to-day as 
the economic ties between different parts of the 
German Empire previous to the Zollverein. To 
be sure, this argument does not presage great 
strength for such relations, but it does show that 
the mere fact of the existence of the Atlantic 

276 



EXTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

Ocean is not sufficient to prove that there is not 
and never can be a substantial identity of eco- 
nomic interests. But waiving that, assuming that 
the only bond there is or can be between England 
and her self-governing colonies is that of blood, 
it will be difficult for the student to deny that the 
racial tie is more than likely to be sufficient to 
hold the Empire together, and to secure actual 
support from the colonies in ships and troops. 
Enthusiastic response to the recent appeal of the 
mother country for assistance shows conclusively 
that there is a good deal more likelihood of the 
tie between England and her colonies being suffi- 
cient to hold them together than that the present 
political tie will be sufficient to prevent the com- 
plete dismemberment of Austria-Hungary. If we 
take the most unfavorable statement possible of 
the British Empire and the most favorable state- 
ment of the actual situation in the Dual Mon- 
archy, it will be difficult to deny that the British 
Empire possesses all those qualities of unity of 
race, of language, of religion, of economic inter- 
est, of policy, of loyalty, which the Dual Monarchy 
conspicuously lacks. And the continued existence 
of the Dual Monarchy is a good deal more im- 
portant to Pan-Germanism than the assistance 
of the English colonies is likely to be to the 
Triple Entente. 

277 



PAN-GERMANISM 

In regard to the economic weapons upon which 
Germany places so much reliance, the truth of 
the facts alleged is not possible of denial, but the 
inferences drawn from them seem to be enor- 
mously exaggerated. Unquestionably, Germany 
does possess the reality, and other nations pos- 
sess paper evidences of their investments, and if 
Germany should decline to pay her loans, and if 
she should be able to maintain herself in war, 
disastrous results might be produced. The possi- 
bility of the confiscation of the English invest- 
ments in other parts of the world does not seem 
to be probable. It has always been true that the 
strong man could rob the weaker, that the strong 
nation could rob the smaller; but the experience 
of men throughout the centuries seems to have 
demonstrated pretty effectively, that, even when 
the thief is not punished by the arm of justice, 
there are economic laws which somehow seem to 
prevent the attainment of the degree of benefit 
he expected to derive. So radical a disavowal of 
the strength of the feeling in favor of commer- 
cial and national honesty is far removed from 
the general opinion of the financial world, and 
it seems probable that the Germans have very 
much underestimated the strength of the moral 
obligation which binds the commercial world 
together. 

278 



EXTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

Above all, this talk of confiscation as a last 
resort, of taking possession for nothing of Ger- 
many's development, is all based upon the sup- 
position that it will be as easy to keep it as it 
is to get it, and upon the equally peculiar notion 
that the financial situation will remain what it 
was some years ago when these notions were first 
promulgated. They are no longer secret, nor have 
the foreign investors failed to take account of the 
fact that, even should Germany take no steps 
to repudiate her debts, the coming of war would 
for the time being at any rate rob them of their 
incomes. They are not investing to-day at the 
rate they did before in German securities; they 
will no longer advance loans to the German and 
Austrian Governments without pledges in re- 
gard to the destination of the money of such a 
nature as to make treachery improbable; they 
have already been at work for some years ex- 
changing their investments in Germany for other 
securities. American investors are inclined to 
greet such a supposition as repudiation with in- 
credulity, and the small European investor, who 
is not informed in the details of current politics, 
is apt to suppose that the German or Austrian 
Government is necessarily trustworthy; but the 
great financial heads do not seem to be of that 
opinion. An Austrian war loan, offered in De- 

279 



PAN-GERMANISM 

cember, 1912, at 97, was not subscribed with 
alacrity. None of the Germans seem to remember 
that after the war is over, after they have suc- 
ceeded in destroying France and robbing England, 
they will be forced to have relations with the rest 
of the world and with each other. The effect of 
the wholesale repudiation of their debts, private 
and national, however crushing it might be at 
the moment to their creditors, and whether or 
not it was intentional or involuntary, would 
almost certainly react upon themselves in the 
future so unfavorably as to render the whole 
operation scarcely to their advantage. With such 
a record, how could they expect to obtain the 
confidence of the Hindu and of the Chinese, to 
say nothing of maintaining that belief in each 
other's honesty and faithfulness upon which the 
whole structure of Pan-Germanism rests .^^ 

Their economic weapons, about which the 
Germans talk so glibly, the starving of England, 
the depriving her factories of raw materials, the 
cutting-off of her supplies for the maintenance of 
a fleet, these depend one and all upon the ability 
of the German navy to outmanoeuvre the English 
and get possession of the Channel in such fashion 
that a pitched battle would be necessary to dis- 
lodge it, or upon its ability to defeat the English 
fleet in the first place in so decisive a manner that 

280 



EXTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

assistance could not come from the Mediterra- 
nean and from America in time to avert the 
catastrophe. It is perhaps well to remember in 
this connection that the Germans are not a nation 
of sailors, and that their navy has thus far been 
used only for manoeuvres like those of the King of 
France when he marched up the hill and then 
marched down again. It is true, as the Germans 
say in defense, that the English have never used 
the present type of ship in actual warfare; but it 
is surely exceedingly important to remember that 
the English invented and designed the present 
type of ship, and in all probability know more 
about its use than the Germans are likely to. The 
latter seem to lay more stress upon the size of 
their fleet than they do upon its eflSciency, and 
seem to suppose that, if it were more numerous 
than the English, victory would be assured. The 
Spanish Armada, to cite one familiar example 
from many, was reputed at the time to be so 
powerful, and certainly did so largely outnumber 
the English fleet, that Europeans supposed no 
resistance would be possible; yet in this action, 
as in many others, the English demonstrated con- 
clusively that knowledge of seamanship and the 
efliciency of the individual vessel was of vastly 
more consequence than numbers. While at the 
present day there is no great sailor of conspicuous 

281 



PAN-GERMANISM 

fame in the English navy, it is diflScult to believe 
that the nation, which produced in moments 
of danger men like Drake, Blake, and Nelson, 
would be incapable in a similar crisis of producing 
as suddenly from the ranks some man of equally 
conspicuous talent. It will be early enough to 
assume the defeat of the English on the sea when 
that event occurs. 

The German army is probably more efficient 
than the fleet, but is very likely not as efficient 
as the Germans think it is. Military critics have 
declared it bound too tightly with red tape, filled 
with unintelligent officials, too stiff and mechan- 
ical in its evolutions to give much of an account 
of itself in battle. Certainly, it cannot compare 
in point of size with the army Russia could put 
in the field, and competent judges have declared 
it far inferior in quality to the French army. To 
be sure, none of these armies have recently been 
under fire except the Russian army, whose experi- 
ence was perhaps not a desirable preparation for 
another war. The condition of the English army 
in England is admitted on all sides to be bad, 
though the actual deficiencies have no doubt 
been exaggerated by the eager advocates of uni- 
versal conscription. But while the Anglo-Saxon 
race has invariably not shown to advantage in the 
field before the war, nor indeed during the first 

282 



EXTERNAL WEAKNESSES 

years of a long war, they have usually won. From 
the point of view of strategy, the Duke of Welling- 
ton was hopelessly beaten at Waterloo; according 
to all the rules of tacticians, his thin line of 
redcoats could never hold such a position; but 
the critics have since been compelled to admit 
that the English soldiers possessed some qualities, 
which other troops did not have, that enabled 
them to hold that position despite the odds and 
win one of the decisive battles of history. No 
doubt all Anglo-Saxons are prejudiced, but they 
will not credit the supposition that the descend- 
ants of the men who fought Napoleon and the 
men themselves who won the war in South 
Africa, when they meet an invader upon their 
own soil, will be unable to give a satisfactory 
account of themselves. 

The really doubtful factor in the present situa- 
tion is Russia. She, far more than England, holds 
the scale. She is likely to gain in the long run 
whichever side wins. Should Germany overthrow 
England and France in Europe and take pos- 
session of the Mediterranean, Russia would cer- 
tainly reach India first. If she should join Ger- 
many, the downfall of England and France would 
be assured, and the victors could divide the world 
at their leisure. But she could not join Germany 
without renouncing her ambitions in the Baltic, 

283 



PAN-GERMANISM 

without permitting the Germans to overrun that 
sea and throwing herself back upon Asia and mak- 
ing it the centre of a new empire. The likelihood 
of such a renunciation of her position in Europe 
is exceedingly small. The probability that Ger- 
mans would believe in her sincerity, if she offered 
them an alliance on such a basis, is infinitely 
smaller. Germany is so exposed that the treach- 
ery of Russia would be fatal. As the situation 
looks at present, nothing short of the breaking 
of the alliance between England, France, the 
United States, and Russia can permit the Ger- 
man scheme to obtain anything more than a 
temporary and partial success. The first three 
of these allies cannot leave the alliance without 
endangering everything they hold dear. The 
fourth can do so only by the renunciation of am- 
bitions which have been the very backbone of 
Russian policy ever since Russia herself emerged 
upon the plane of European politics. 



THE END 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX 

THE SPEECH OF PREMIER BORDEN OF 
CANADA ADVOCATING A NEW NAVAL 
POLICY 

WITH THE 

OFFICIAL MEMORANDUM OF THE ENG- 
LISH ADMIRALTY ON ENGLAND'S NAVAL 
POSITION 

The following speech was delivered by Premier Bor- 
den in the Canadian House of Commons on December 
5, 1912, and was received with the utmost enthusiasm 
by a crowded assemblage. The House rose to its feet, 
cheering and waving handkerchiefs for many minutes, 
and sang "God save the King'* at the conclusion of a 
very remarkable demonstration. This speech and the 
official memorandum communicated to the House 
prove the extent of the anxiety in England over the 
progress of Pan-Germanism. The text of the speech 
given here is that printed in the weekly edition of the 
London Times for December 6, 1912; the text of the 
Memorandum is that printed by the Times from the 
official Parliamentary Paper, Cd. 6513. Actual official 
copies could not be procured in time for publication : — 

During my recent visit to the British Islands I ven- 
tured on many public occasions to propound the prin- 
ciple that the great Dominions, sharing in the defence 
of the Empire upon the high seas, must necessarily 
be entitled to share also in the responsibility for and in 

287 



APPENDIX 

the control of foreign policy. No declaration I made 
was greeted more heartily and enthusiastically than 
this. It is satisfactory to know to-day that not only His 
Majesty's Ministers, but also the leaders of the oppo- 
site political party in Great Britain, have explicitly 
accepted this principle, and have afcmed the convic- 
tion that the means by which it can be constitutionally 
accomplished must be sought, discovered, and utilized 
without delay. 

The present Government assumed office on the 10th 
October, 1911, and met Parliament on the 17th day of 
November following. It is hardly necessary to point 
out that there was no opportunity until after the close 
of the Session to visit Great Britain, or consult the 
Admiralty in any effective way. Shortly after the Ses- 
sion closed I went to England, accompanied by some of 
my colleagues, and for several weeks we had the oppor- 
tunity from time to time of conferring with the British 
Government, and consulting with technical and expert 
advisers of the Admiralty, respecting the whole ques- 
tion of naval defence, and especially the conditions 
which confront the Empire at present and in the early 
future. I desire to express my warm appreciation of 
the manner in which we were received by His Majesty's 
Government, who took us most fully into their con- 
fidence regarding great questions of foreign policy 
and defence, and who accorded to us all the relevant 
information at their disposal. A portion of this is, 
necessarily, of a very confidential character which can- 
not be made public, but the important part will be 
communicated to the House in a document which I 
shall lay on the table this afternoon. 

I now proceed to submit to the House the informa- 
tion which we have received from His Majesty's Gov- 

288 



APPENDIX 

emment which, in the form of a memorandum, is as 
follows : — 

1. The Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada has 
invited His Majesty's Government through the Board of 
Admiralty to prepare a statement of the present and imme- 
diately prosj)ective requirements of the naval defence of the 
Empire for presentation to the Canadian Parliament if the 
Dominion Cabinet deem it necessary. 

The Lords Commissiooers of the Admiralty are prepared 
to comply and to supplement, in a form which can be made 
public, the confidential communications and conversations 
which have passed between the Admiralty and Ministers 
of the Dominion ParHament during the recent visit to the 
United Kingdom. 

The Admiralty set the greatest store by the important 
material, and still more important moral, assistance which it 
is within the power of Canada to give to maintaining British 
naval supremacy upon the high seas; but they think it neces- 
sary to disclaim any intention, however indirect, of putting 
pressure upon Canadian public opinion, or of seeking to influ- 
ence the Dominion Parliament in a decision which clearly 
belongs solely to Canada. 

The Admiralty therefore confine themselves in this state- 
ment exclusively to facts, and it is for the Dominion Govern- 
ment and ParHament to draw their own conclusions there- 
from. 

2. The power of the British Empire to maintain the supe- 
riority on the sea, which is essential to its security, must 
obviously be measured from time to time by reference to the 
other naval forces of the worid, and such a comparison does 
not imply anything unfriendly in intention or in spirit to any 
other Power or group of Powers. From this point of view the 
development of the German Fleet during the last fifteen 
years is the most striking feature of the naval situation 
to-day. That development has been authorized by five suc- 
cessive legislative enactments, viz., the Fleet Laws of 1898, 
1900, 1906, 1908, and 1912. These laws cover the period up 
to 1920. 

WTiereas in 1898 the German Fleet consisted of: — 
9 battleships (excluding coast defence vessels), 

289 



APPENDIX 

S large cruisers, 

28 small cruisers, 

113 torpedo-boats, and 

25,000 men,— 
maintained at an annual cost of £6,000,000, the full Fleet of 
1920 will consist of: — 

41 battleships, 

20 large cruisers, 

40 small cruisers, 

144 torpedo-boats, 

72 submarines, and 

101,500 men, — 
estimated to be maintained at an annual cost of £23,000,000. 
These figures, however, give no real idea of the advance, for 
the size and cost of ships has risen continually during the 
period, and, apart from increasing their total numbers, Ger- 
many has systematically replaced old and small ships, which 
counted as units in her earlier Fleet, by the most powerful 
and costly modern vessels. Neither does the money provided 
by the Estimates for the completed law represent the increase 
in cost properly attributable to the German Navy, for many 
charges borne on British naval funds are otherwise defrayed 
in Germany; and the German Navy comprises such a large 
proportion of new ships that the cost of maintenance and 
repair is considerably less than in navies which have been 
longer established. 

3. The naval expansion of Germany has not been pro- 
voked by British naval increases. The German Government 
have repeatedly declared that their naval policy has not been 
influenced by British action, and the following figures speak 
for themselves : — 

In 1905 Great Britain was building four capital ships, and 

Germany two. 
In 1906 Great Britain reduced to three capital ships, and 

Germany increased to three. 
In 1907 Great Britain built three capital ships, and Ger- 
many built three. 
In 1908 Great Britain further reduced to two capital ships, 

and Germany further increased to four. 
It was not until the efforts of Great Britain to procure the 
abatement or retardation of naval rivalry had failed for three 

290 



APPENDIX 

successive years that the Admiralty were forced in 1909, upon 
a general review of the naval situation, to ask Parliament to 
take exceptional measures to secure against all possible haz- 
ards the safety of the Empire. In that year eight capital 
ships were laid down in Great Britain, and two others were 
provided by the Commonwealth of Australia and the Do- 
minion of New Zealand respectively — a total of ten. 

4. In the spring of the present year the fifth German Navy 
Law was assented to by the Reichstag. The main feature of 
that law is not the increase in the new construction of capital 
ships, though that is important, but rather the increase in 
the striking force of ships of all classes which will be imme- 
diately available at all seasons of the year. 

A third squadron of eight battleships will be created and 
maintained in full commission as part of the active battle 
fleet. Whereas, according to the unamended law, the active 
battle fleet consisted of seventeen battleships, four battle or 
large armoured cruisers, and twelve small cruisers, it will in 
the near future consist of twenty-five battleships, eight battle 
or large armoured cruisers, and eighteen small cruisers; and 
whereas at present, owing to the system of recruitment which 
prevails in Germany, the German Fleet is less fully mobile 
during the winter than during the summer months, it will, 
through the operation of this law, not only be increased in 
strength, but rendered much more readily available. Ninety- 
nine torpedo-boat destroyers, instead of sixty-six, will be 
maintained in full commission out of a total of one hundred 
and forty-four; seventy-two new submarines will be built 
within the currency of the new law, and of these it is appar- 
ently proposed to maintain fifty-four with full permanent 
crews. Taking a general view, the effect of the law will be 
that nearly four-fifths of the entire German Navy will be 
maintained in full permanent commission; that is to say, 
instantly and constantly ready for war. 

So great a change and development in the German Fleet 
involves, of course, important additions to their personnel. 
In 1898 the officers and men of the German Navy amounted 
to 25,000. To-day that figure has reached 66,000. The new 
law adds 15,000 officers and men, and makes a total in 1920 of 
101,500. 

; The new construction imder the law prescribes the build- 

291 



APPENDIX 

ing of three additional battleships — one to be begun next 
year, one in 1916 — and two small cruisers, of which the date 
has not yet been fixed. The date of the third battleship has 
not been fixed. It has been presumed to be later than the six 
years which are in view. The cost of these increases in men 
and in material during the next six years is estimated as 
£10,500,000 spread over that period above the previous esti- 
mates. 

The facts set forth above were laid before the House of 
Commons on the 22d July, 1912, by the First Lord of the 
Admiralty. 

5. The effect of the new German Navy Law is to produce a 
remarkable expansion of strength and readiness. The number 
of battleships and large armoured cruisers which will be kept 
constantly ready and in full commission will be raised by the 
law from twenty-one, the present figure, to thirty-three — 
an addition of twelve, or an increase of about fifty-seven 
per cent. 

The new fleet will, in the beginning, include about twenty 
battleships and large cruisers of the older type, but gradu- 
ally as new vessels are built the fighting power of the fleet 
will rise until in the end it will consist completely of modem 
vessels. 

The complete organization of the German Fleet, as de- 
scribed by the latest law, will be five battle squadrons and 
a fleet flagship, comprising forty-one battleships in all, each 
attended by a battle or armoured cruiser squadron, complete 
with small cruisers and auxiliaries of all kinds and accom- 
panied by numerous flotillas of destroyers and submarines. 

This full development will only be realized step by step; 
but already in 1914, two squadrons will, according to Admir- 
alty information, be entirely composed of what are called 
Dreadnoughts, and the third will be made up of good ships 
like the '*Deutschlands" and the "Braunschweigs," together 
with five Dreadnought battle cruisers. 

This great fleet is not dispersed all over the world for duties 
of commerce protection or in discharge of Colonial responsi- 
bilities; nor are its composition and character adapted to 
those purposes. It is concentrated and kept concentrated in 
close proximity to the German and British coasts. 

Attention must be drawn to the explicit declaration of the 

29^ 



APPENDIX 

tactical objects for which the German fleet exists as set forth 
in the preamble to the Naval Law of 1900 as follows: — 

"In order to protect German trade and commerce under 
existing conditions, only one thing will suffice, namely, Ger- 
many must possess a battle fleet of such a strength that even 
for the most powerful naval adversary a war would involve 
such risks as to make that Power's own supremacy doubtful. 
For this purpose it is not absolutely necessary that the Ger- 
man Fleet should be as strong as that of the greatest naval 
Power, for, as a rule, a great Naval Power will not be in a 
position to concentrate all its forces against us.*' 

6. It is now necessary to look forward to the situation in 
1915. 

In the spring of the year 1915 — 

Great Britain will have twenty-five "Dreadnought" bat- 
tleships and two "Lord Nelsons." 

Germany will have seventeen "Dreadnought" battle- 
ships. 

Great Britain will have six battle cruisers. 

Germany will have six battle cruisers. 

These margins in new ships are sober and moderate. They 
do not err on the side of excess. The reason they suffice for 
the present is that Great Britain possesses a good superiority 
in battleships, and especially armoured cruisers, of the pre- 
Dreadnought era. 

The reserve of strength will steadily diminish every year, 
actually because the ships of which it is composed grow old, 
and relatively because the new ships are more powerful. It 
will diminish more rapidly if new construction in Germany 
is increased or accelerated. As this process continues greater 
exertions will be required by the British Empire. 

Four battle cruisers and four armoured cruisers will be 
required to support British interests in the Mediterranean 
during the years 1913 and 1914. During those years the 
navies of Austria and Italy will gradually increase in strength, 
until in 1915 they will each possess a formidable fleet of four 
and six Dreadnought battleships respectively, together with 
strong battleships of the pre-Dreadnought types and other 
units, such as cruisers, torpedo-craft, etc. It is evident, 
therefore, that in the year 1915 our squadron of four battle 
cruisers and four lurmoured cruisers will not suffice to fulfil 

. 293 . 



APPENDIX 

our requirements, and its whole composition must be recon- 
sidered. 

It has been necessary within the past decade to concen- 
trate the fleet mainly in home waters. 

In 1902 there were one hundred and sixty British vessels 
on the overseas stations against seventy-six to-day. 

7. Naval supremacy is of two kinds: general and local. 
General naval supremacy consists in the power to defeat in 
battle and drive from the seas the strongest hostile navy or 
combination of hostile navies wherever they may be found. 
Local superiority consists in the power to send in good time 
to, or maintain permanently in, some distant theatre forces 
adequate to defeat the enemy or hold him in check until the 
main decision has been obtained in the decisive theatre. It is 
the general naval supremacy of Great Britain which is the 
primary safeguard of the security and interests of the great 
Dominions of the Crown, and which for all these years has 
been the deterrent upon any possible designs prejudicial to 
or inconsiderate of their pohcy and safety. 

The rapid expansion of Canadian sea-borne trade, and the 
immense value of Canadian cargoes always afloat in British 
and Canadian bottoms, here require consideration. On the 
basis of the figures supplied by the Board of Trade to the 
Imperial Conference of 1911, the annual value of the overseas 
trade of the Dominion of Canada in 1909-10 was not less 
than 72,000,000/., and the tonnage of Canadian vessels was 
718,000 tons, and these proportions have already increased 
and are still increasing. For the whole of this trade wherever 
it may be about the distant waters of the world, as well as 
for the maintenance of her communications, both with Europe 
and Asia, Canada is dependent, and has always depended 
upon the Imperial Navy, without corresponding contribution 
or cost. 

Further, at the present time and in the immediate future. 
Great Britain still has the power, by making special arrange- 
ments and mobilizing a portion of the reserves, to send, with- 
out courting disaster at home, an effective fleet of battle- 
ships and cruisers to unite with the Royal Australian Navy 
and the British squadrons in China and the Pacific for the 
defence of British Columbia, Australia, and New Zealand. 
And these communities are also protected and their interests 

294 



APPENDIX 

safeguarded by the power and authority of Great Britain so 
long as her naval strength is unbroken. 

8. This power, both specific and general, will be dimin- 
ished with the growth not only of the German Navy, but by 
the simultaneous building by many Powers of great modern 
ships of war. 

Whereas, in the present year. Great Britain possesses eight- 
een battleships and battle cruisers of the Dreadnought class 
against nineteen of that class possessed by the other Powers 
of Europe, and will possess in 1913 twenty-four to twenty- 
one, the figures in 1914 will be thirty-one to thirty-three; and 
in the year 1915, thirty-five to fifty-one. 

The existence of a number of navies, all comprising ships 
of high quality, must be considered in so far as it affects the 
possibilities of adverse combinations being suddenly formed. 
Larger margins of superiority at home would, among other 
things, restore a greater freedom to the movements of the 
British squadrons in every sea, and directly promote the 
security of the Dominions. Anything which increases our 
margin in the newest ships diminishes the strain, and aug- 
ments our security and our chances of being left unmolested. 

9. Whatever may be the decision of Canada at the present 
juncture, Great Britain will not in any circumstances fail in 
her duty to the Oversea Dominions of the Crown. 

She has before now successfully made head alone and un- 
aided against the most formidable combinations, and she 
has not lost her capacity by a wise policy and strenuous ex- 
ertions to watch over and preserve the vital interests of the 
Empire. 

The Admiralty are assured that His Majesty's Govern- 
ment will not hesitate to ask the House of Commons for what- 
ever provision the circumstances of each year may require. 
But the aid which Canada could give at the present time is 
not to be measured only in ships or money. Any action on 
the part of Canada to increase the power and mobility of the 
Imperial Navy, and thus widen the margin of our common 
safety, would be recognized everywhere as a most signifi- 
cant witness to the united strength of the Empire, and to the 
renewed resolve of the Overseas Dominions to take their 
part in maintaining its integrity. 

10. The Prime Minister of the Dominion having enquired 

295 



APPENDIX 

in what form any immediate aid that Canada might give 
would be most effective, we have no hesitation in answering, 
after a prolonged consideration of all the circumstances, that 
it is desirable that such aid should include the provision of 
a certain number of the largest and strongest ships of war 
which science can build or money supply. 

Mr. Borden continued : — 

Do Canadians sufficiently realize the disparity be- 
tween the naval risks of our Empire and those of any 
other nation ? The armies of Continental Europe 
number their men by the million, not by the thousand. 
They are highly equipped and organized, the whole 
population have undergone military training, and any 
one of the countries is absolutely secure against inva- 
sion from Great Britain, which could not send an expe- 
ditionary force of more than one hundred and fifty 
thousand men at the highest estimate. Such a force 
would be outnumbered by twenty to one by any of the 
great European Powers. This Empire is not a great 
military Power, and it has based its security in the 
past, as in the present, almost entirely on the strength 
of its Navy. A crushing defeat upon the high seas 
would render the British Islands, or any Dominion, 
subject to invasion by any great military Power; loss 
of such a decisive battle by Great Britain would prac- 
tically destroy the United Kingdom, shatter the British 
Empire to its foundation, and change profoundly the 
destiny of its component parts. The advantages which 
Great Britain could gain from defeating the naval 
forces of any other Power would be non-existent except 
in so far as the result would insure the safety of the 
Empire. On the other hand, there are practically no 
limits to the ambitions which might be indulged in by 
other Powers if the British Navy were once destroyed 
or disabled. There is, therefore, grave cause for concern 

296 



APPENDIX 

when once the naval supremacy of the Empu-e seems on 
the point of being successfully challenged. 

The great outstanding fact which arrests our atten- 
tion in considering the existing r^onditions of naval 
power is this : Twelve years ago the British Navy and the 
British Flag were predominant in every ocean of the world 
and along the shores of every continent. To-day they are 
predominant nowhere except in the North Sea. ^ The para- 
mount duty of insuring safety in home waters has been 
fulfilled by withdrawing or reducing squadrons in every 
part of the world, and by concentrating nearly all the 
effective naval forces in close proximity to the British 
Islands. In 1902 there were fifty-five British warships 
on the Mediterranean station; to-day there are nine- 
teen. There were fourteen on the North American and 
West Indies station; to-day there are three. There 
were three on the southeast Coast of South America; 
to-day there is one. There were sixteen on the Cape of 
Good Hope station; to-day there are three. There were 
eight on the Pacific station; to-day there are two. 
There were forty-two on the China station; to-day 
there are thirty-one. There were twelve on the Austra- 
lian station; to-day there are eight. There were ten on 
the East Indies station, to-day there are nine. To sum 
up, in 1902 there were one hundred and sixty ships 
on foreign and Colonial stations against seventy-six 
to-day. Do not imagine that this result has been 
brought about by any reduction in expenditure, for the 
case is practically the reverse. Great Britain's total 
naval expenditure in 1902 was less than $152,000,000 
(£30,400,000). For the present fiscal year it exceeds 
$220,000,000 (£44,000,000). Why, then, has the naval 
force of the Empire been so enormously reduced 
1 The italics are not ia the original. 
297 



APPENDIX 

throughout the world while at the same time the ex- 
penditure has increased nearly fifty per cent? For the 
simple reason that the increasing strength of other 
navies, and especially of the German Navy, has com- 
pelled Great Britain not only to increase her Fleet, but 
to concentrate it in the vicinity of the British Islands, 
and there has been, of course, a substantial increase in 
the strength in home waters. In short, the strain of 
meeting changed conditions has been so heavy and 
unceasing that, in spite of the largely-increased expen- 
diture and every possible exertion, the Admiralty has 
been compelled by the pressure of circumstances to 
withdraw or diminish the forces throughout the world 
which, in time of peril, safeguarded the security and 
integrity of the King's Dominions, and, in time of 
peace, were the living and visible symbol of the tie that 
unites all the subjects of the Crown. 

It is neither necessary nor desirable in this place to 
debate or discuss the probability or imminence of war. 
The real test of our action is the existence or non-exist- 
ence of absolute security. We cannot afford to be sat- 
isfied with anything less than that, for the risk is too 
great. It should never be forgotten that without war, with- 
out firing a shot or striking a blow, our naval supremacy 
may disappear y and with it the sole guarantee of the Em- 
pire's continued existence. I especially desire to empha- 
size this consideration,^ for all history, and especially 
modern history, conveys to us many grave warnings 
that the issue of great events may be determined, and 
often is determined, not by actual war resulting in vic- 
tory or defeat, but by the mere existence of an unmistak- 
able and pronounced naval or military superiority on 
either side,^ 

^ The italics are not in the ori^nal. 
298 



APPENDIX 

The fact that trade routes, vital to the Empire's con- 
tinued existence, are inadequately defended and pro- 
tected by reason of the necessary concentration in 
home waters is exceedingly impressive, and even start- 
ling. Even during the present year the battleships of 
the British Mediterranean Fleet, based on Malta, have 
been withdrawn and based on Gibraltar, in order that 
they might become more easily available for necessary 
aid in home waters. The Atlantic Fleet, based on 
Gibraltar, has been withdrawn to the vicinity of the 
British Islands for the same reason. Under such condi- 
tions the British Flag is not predominant in the Mediter- 
raneany and with every available exertion of the whole Em- 
pire it may he impossible to regain the necessary position 
of strength in that great highway before 1915 or 1916.^ 
Austria-Hungary, with only one hundred and forty 
miles of seacoast and absolutely no colonial possessions, 
is building in the Mediterranean a formidable fleet of 
Dreadnoughts which will attain its full strength in 
about three years, and which will be supported by 
strong battleships of the pre-Dreadnought type, and 
by cruisers, torpedo-craft, and other necessary auxil- 
iaries. The fleet of Italy in the same theatre will be 
even more powerful and more formidable. 

The withdrawal of the British Flag and the British 
Navy from so many parts of the world for the purpose 
of concentration in home waters has been necessary, 
but unfortunate. Our Navy was once dominant every- 
where, and the White Ensign was the token of naval 
supremacy in all seas. Is it not time that the former 
conditions should, in some measure, be restored.'^ Upon 
our own coasts, both Atlantic and Pacific, powerful 
squadrons were maintained twelve years ago. To-day 

* The italics are not in the original. 
299 



APPENDIX 

the Flag is not shown on either seaboard. I am assured 
that the aid which we propose will enable such special 
arrangements to be consummated that, without court- 
ing disaster at home, an effective fleet of battleships 
and cruisers can be established in the Pacific, and a 
powerful squadron can periodically visit our Atlantic 
seaboard and assert once more the naval strength of 
the Empire along these coasts. I do not forget, how- 
ever, that it is the general naval supremacy of the Em- 
pire which primarily safeguards the Oversea Domin- 
ions. New Zealand's battleship is ranged in line with 
the other British battleships in the North Sea, because 
there New Zealand's interests may best be guarded by 
protecting the very heart of the Empire. 

In presenting our proposals it must be borne in mind 
that we are not undertaking or beginning a system of 
regular and periodical contributions. I agree with the 
resolution of this House in 1909 that the payment of 
such contributions would not be the most satisfactory 
solution of the question of defence. 

Upon the information which I have disclosed to the 
House, the situation is, in my opinion, sufliciently 
grave to demand immediate action. We have asked 
His Majesty's Government what form of temporary 
and immediate aid can best be given by Canada at 
this juncture. The answer has been unhesitating and 
unequivocal. Let me again quote it : — 

We have no hesitation in answering, after a prolonged 
consideration of all the circumstances, that it is desirable 
that such aid should include the provision of a certain num- 
ber of the largest and strongest ships of war which science 
can build or money supply. 

Upon inquiry as to the cost of such a battleship 
we were informed by the Admiralty that it is approxi- 

300 



APPENDIX 

mately £2,350,000, including armament and the first 
outfit of ordnance, stores, and ammunition. The total 
cost of three such battleships, which when launched 
would be the most powerful in the world, would be, 
approximately, $35,000,000, and we ask the people of 
Canada, through their Parliament, to grant that sum 
to His Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland 
and of the Oversea Dominions, in order to increase the 
effective naval forces of the Empire, to safeguard our 
shores and our sea-borne commerce, and to make secure 
the common heritage of all who owe allegiance to the 
King. 

Those ships will be at the disposal of His Majesty the 
King for the common defence of the Empire. They 
will be maintained and controlled as part of the Royal 
Navy, and we have the assurance that, if at any time 
in the future it be the will of the Canadian people to 
establish a Canadian unit of the British Na\y, these 
vessels can be called by the Canadian Government to 
form part of the Navy, in which case, of course, they 
will be maintained by Canada and not by Great Britain. 
In that event, there will, necessarily, be reasonable 
notice, and, indeed, Canada would not desire or suggest 
the sudden withdrawal of so powerful a contingent from 
any important theatre in which the naval forces of the 
Empire might be exposed to severe and sudden attack. 
In the mean time, I am assured that special arrange- 
ments will be made to give Canadians an opportunity 
of serving as officers in these ships. 

There have been proposals, to which I shall no more 
than allude, that we should build up a great naval 
organization in Canada. In my humble opinion nothing 
of an effective character could be built up in this coun- 
try within a quarter or, perhaps, half a century. Even 

301 



APPENDIX 

then it would be but a poor and weak substitute for 
that splendid organization which the Empire already 
possesses, and which has been evolved and built up by 
centuries of the most searching experience and the high- 
est endeavour. Is there really any need that we should 
undertake the hazardous and costly experiment of 
building up a naval organization especially restricted 
to Canada when upon just and self-respecting terms 
we can take such part as we desire in naval defence 
through the existing naval organization of the Empire, 
and in that way can fully and effectively avail ourselves 
of the men and the resources at the command of 
Canada ? 

Where shall these ships be built? They will be built 
under Admiralty supervision in the United Kingdom 
for the reason that, at present, there are no adequate 
facilities for constructing them in Canada. The addi- 
tional cost of construction in Canada would be about 
twelve million dollars for three, and it would be impos- 
sible to estimate the delay. No one is more eager than 
myself for the development of the shipbuilding indus- 
tries in Canada, but we cannot, upon any business or 
economic considerations, begin with the construction 
of Dreadnoughts, and especially we could not do so 
when these ships are urgently required within two or three 
years at the outside for rendering aid upon which may 
depend the Empire's future existence.^ According to my 
conception, the effective development of the shipbuild- 
ing industries in Canada must commence with small 
beginnings and in a businesslike way. I have discussed 
the subject with the Admiralty, and they thoroughly 
realize that it is not to the Empire's advantage that all 
shipbuilding facilities should be concentrated in the 

* The italics are not in the original. 
302 



APPENDIX 

United Kingdom. I am assured, therefore, that the 
Admiralty are prepared in the early futm^e to give 
orders for the construction in Canada of small cruisers, 
oil tank vessels, and auxiliary craft of various kinds. 
The plant required is relatively small as compared 
with that which is necessary for Dreadnought battle- 
ships, and such an undertaking will have a much more 
secure and permanent basis from the business stand- 
point. For the purpose of stimulating so important and 
necessary an industry we have expressed our willing- 
ness to bear a portion of the increased cost for a time at 
least. I see no reason why all the vessels required in 
future for our Government service should not be built 
in Canada, even at some additional cost. 

These ships will constitute an aid brought by the 
Canadian people to His Majesty the King as a token 
of their determination to maintain the integrity of the 
Empire and assist in repelling any danger which may 
threaten its security. It is most appropriate that the 
opportunity should have come when the Crown is 
represented in Canada by His Royal Highness the 
Governor-General, who has rendered such valuable 
and eminent service to the State, and who takes so 
deep and splendid an interest in all that concerns the 
welfare and safety of every portion of His Majesty's 
Dominions. Canada is sending these ships to range 
themselves in the battle-line of the Empire with those 
of the Mother Country, Australia, and New Zealand. 
They will be three of the most powerful battleships in 
the world, and they will bear historic names associated 
with this country. 

But if we should neglect the duty which I conceive 
we owe to ourselves, and if irreparable disaster should 
ensue, what will be our future destiny.'^ Obviously as 

303 



APPENDIX 

an independent nation or as an important part of the 
great neighbouring Republic. What then would be our 
responsibilities, and what would be the burden upon us 
for a protection on the high seas much less powerful 
and less effective than that which we enjoy to-day? 
Take the case of one nation whose territory, resources, 
population, and wealth may fairly be compared with 
those in Canada. The naval estimates of Argentina 
for the four years from 1909 to 1912 inclusive amounted 
to $35,000,000 (£7,000,000). No information is avail- 
able as to the exact proportion of the last-mentioned 
sum which has been appropriated for naval purposes, 
but it is understood that the far greater portion is for 
naval construction. It is safe, therefore, to estimate 
that during the past four years Argentina has expended 
for naval purposes not less than from $65,000,000 to 
$70,000,000 (£13,000,000 to £14,000,000). The Fed- 
eral and State expenditure of the United States com- 
prises a total outlay for armaments of between 
$250,000,000 and $300,000,000 (£50,000,000 and 
£60,000,000), or at the rate of $2.75 per head. Similar 
expenditure by Canada would mean an annual out- 
lay of some $20,000,000 to $25,000,000, or between 
$80,000,000 and $100,000,000 during the same period. 

From 1853 to 1903 Great Britain's expenditure on 
military defence in Canada runs closely to $100,000,000. 

Has the protection of the Flag and the prestige of 
the Empire meant anything for us during all that 
period.^ Hundreds of illustrations are at hand, but let 
me give just two. During a period of disorder in a 
distant country a Canadian citizen was unjustifiably 
arrested and fifty lashes were laid on his back. An ap- 
peal was made to Great Britain, and with what result? 
A public apology was made to him and £50 were paid 

304 



APPENDIX 

for every lash. In a time of dangerous riot and wild 
terror in a foreign city the Canadian religious com- 
munity remained unafraid. "Why did you not fear? '* 
they were asked, and unhesitatingly came the answer: 
"The Union Jack floated above us." 

I have alluded to the difficulty of finding an accept- 
able basis upon which the great Dominions cooperat- 
ing with the Mother Country in defence can receive 
and assert an adequate voice in the control and mould- 
ing of foreign policy. We were brought closely in touch 
with both subjects when we met the British Ministers 
in the Committee of Imperial Defence. That com- 
mittee is peculiarly constituted, but in my judgment 
is very effective. It consists of the Prime Minister of 
Great Britain and such persons as he may summon to 
attend it. Practically all the members of the Cabinet 
from time to time attend its deliberations, and usu- 
ally the more important members of the Cabinet are 
present. In addition, naval and military experts and 
the technical officers of the various departments con- 
cerned are in attendance. 

While the committee does not control policy in any 
way and could not be undertaken to do so as it is not 
responsible to Parliament, it is necessarily and con- 
stantly obliged to consider foreign policy and foreign 
relations for the obvious reason that defence, and 
especially naval defence, is inseparably connected with 
such considerations. 

I am assured by His Majesty's Government that 
pending a final solution of the question of voice and 
influence they would welcome the presence in London 
of a Canadian Minister during the whole or a portion 
of each year. Such Minister would be regularly sum- 
moned to all meetings of the Committee of Imperial 

305 



APPENDIX 

Defence and be regarded as one of its permanent mem- 
bers. No important step in foreign policy would be 
undertaken without consultation with such represent- 
ative of Canada. This means a very marked advance 
both from our standpoint and from that of the United 
Kingdom. It would give us the opportunity of con- 
sultation and therefore influence which hitherto we 
have not possessed. The conclusions and declarations 
of Great Britain in respect of foreign relations could 
not fail to be strengthened by the knowledge that 
such consultation and cooperation with the Overseas 
Dominions had become an accomplished fact. 

No thoughtful man can fail to realize the very com- 
plex and difficult questions that confront those who 
believe that we must find a basis for permanent coop- 
eration in naval defence and that any such basis must 
afford the Overseas Dominions an adequate voice in 
the moulding and control of foreign policy. It would 
have been idle to expect, and indeed we did not expect, 
to reach in the few weeks at our disposal during the 
past summer a final solution of that problem, which is 
not less interesting than difficult, which touches most 
closely the future destiny of the Empire, and which is 
fraught with even graver significance for the British 
Islands than for Canada. But I conceive that its solu- 
tion is not impossible, and however difficult the task 
may be it is not the part of wisdom or statesmanship 
to evade it. So we invite the statesmen of Great Britain 
to study with us this real problem of Imperial existence. 
The next ten or twenty years will be pregnant with 
great results for this Empire, and it is of infinite import- 
ance that questions of purely domestic concern, how- 
ever urgent, shall not prevent any of us from rising "to 
the height of this great argument." But to-day, while 

306 



APPENDIX 

the clouds are heavy and we hear the booming of dis- 
tant thunder and see lightning flashes above the hori- 
zon, we cannot and will not wait and deliberate until 
the impending storm shall have burst upon us in fury 
and with disaster. Almost unaided, the Motherland, 
not for herself alone, but for us as well, is sustaining the 
burden of a vital Imperial duty and confronting an 
overmastering necessity of national existence. Bring- 
ing the best assistance we may in the urgency of the 
moment we come thus to her aid in token of our deter- 
mination to protect and insure the safety and integrity 
of this Empire and our resolve to defend on sea as well 
as on land our Flag, our honour, and our heritage. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The daily output of books, pamphlets, magazines, and 
newspapers upon the present international crisis is appalling; 
most of it is concerned more or less directly with Pan-Ger- 
manism; the great bulk of it is pretty clearly of no permanent 
value, for such of it as has not been written with a purpose is 
obviously not based upon a full knowledge of the facts. This, 
indeed, is inevitable, and is partly a result of the popular 
demand for "timely" articles and partly a consequence of 
the very proper determination of statesmen and generals to 
keep their plans secret. Articles written long enough after 
the event to contain a careful sifting of trustworthy evidence 
are rarely printed in the more popular magazines, and never 
appear in the newspapers and weekly journals, because the 
lapse of time necessary to write and publish them makes it 
impossible to get them before the public while the war is still 
happening or the event fresh in mind, and hence robs them of 
that immediacy in which "timeliness" chiefly consists. Not 
only do we know that the war correspondents in Tripoli and 
the Balkans saw little, and that little of no importance, but 
the undoubted exaggeration of the brutality and cruelty of 
the Italian army in Tripoli and the numerous bitter contro- 
versies over many details of the campaigns will warn the 
reader to attach little importance to whatever he sees in such 
dispatches, either in the newspapers or in book form, until 
they have been confirmed and generally accepted. Nor has 
the average citizen yet learned that travelers, foreign army 
oflBcers, and natives of the country concerned are not ipso 
facto satisfactory authorities for the policy of European 
Powers and the strategy of campaigns. A moment's consid- 
eration will show the reader the futility of assuming that, 
because he has always lived in the United States, he is cor- 
rectly informed about the future policy of the National 
Government in regard to intervention in Mexico, and will 
therefore prove to him the absurdity of supposing that Ger- 
mans necessarily understand Pan-Germanism or that Eng* 

311 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

lishmen are informed upon naval equipment. In fact, there 
are in every nation many groups of individuals holding very 
diverse views of policies and conditions, all of which have 
readily found voice in the press. In Germany, there are 
administrative, diplomatic, naval, and military views; lit- 
erary, historical, and philosophical notions; industrial and 
socialistic propaganda; Ultramontane, moderate Catholic, 
and Protestant ideas, all held by groups which possess few 
premises in conmion, and which therefore reach the most 
diverse conclusions in regard to the present situation. Of all 
this literature, the student must beware, for most of it was 
written to influence his opinions, and very little of it was 
meant simply to inform him of the sober truth. 

The publications of the German Navy League, the naval 
monthly, Uberall, Harden 's magazine, Die Zukunft, are filled 
with the propaganda of Pan-Germanism, and all have a 
semi-official status. Undoubtedly, the baldest and frankest 
statement of Germany's "rights" is to be found in General 
Bernhardi's Deutschland und der Ndchste Krieg, of which a 
good English translation has just appeared. More compre- 
hensive statements are England's Weltherrschaft und die 
Deutsche Luxusflotte and Deutschland Sei Wach. The former 
appeared in February, 1912, rumored to be from the pen of 
a distinguished Admiral, was extravagantly praised by the 
press, and reached the fourteenth edition within a few weeks; 
the latter was issued somewhat later by the Navy League. 
The best statements in English seem to be the articles pub- 
lished during the last two or three years in the Fortnightly 
Review, some of which are certainly semi-official. There 
seems to have been, however, as yet no systematic attempt 
in Germany or in England to treat the issue comprehensively 
from the objective and historical point of view assumed in 
this volume. 

The American, who has not grown up in the atmosphere 
of European politics, finds that the writers of books and arti- 
cles assume a familiarity with the basic facts of national 
policy which he does not possess, and often do not even 
allude to the imp>ortant premises on which their arguments 
and descriptions rest. The ordinary compendious accounts 
of the history of the nineteenth century fail to lay enough 
stress upon the broader aspects of the situation to render him 

312 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

much assistance. Indeed, he will find indispensable to an 
intelligent perusal of the European literature on the subject 
a careful study of the secret correspondence of the last three 
centuries, in particular that of Napoleon, Metternich, Bis- 
marck,Cavour, Crispi,Gladstone, Be^consfield, and Salisbury. 
The following books comprise those most valuable for the 
study of conditions and events: — 

"Veritas," The German Empire of To-day. London, 1902. 
Clearly semi-official; a recognized authority. 

G. Blondel, Les Embarras de I'Allemagne. Paris, 1912. 

A serious study based upon personal investigation of 
economic and social conditions. 

Colonel Arthur Boucher, La France Victorieuse dans la 
Guerre de Demain. Paris, 1911. 

A detailed study of military strategy and tactics. 

Sidney Whitman, German Memories. London, 1912. 

Dr. Ludwig Stein, Editor, England and Germany. London, 
1912. 
The English translation of the series of essays, written 
by leading English and German statesmen for the 
magazine, Nord und Sud. They give authoritative 
expression to the official view, but do not afford much 
information. 

C. Sarolea, The Anglo-German Problem. London, 1912. 
The author is a Belgian, a wide traveler, and close 
student; he declares the German plans unreasonable 
and impractical. 

Lord Roberts*s Message to the Nation. London, 1912. 

An authoritative statement of the bad condition of 
the English army in England. 

R. W. Seton- Watson, The Southern Slav Question. Lon- 
don, 1911. 

AuBiN, Maroc. Paris, 1903. 

A descriptive work, based upon thorough personal in- 
vestigation. It was crowned by the French Academy. 
There is a good English translation. 

M. Shuster, The Strangling of Persia. New York, 1911. 

Chailley, Administrative Problems of British India. Lon- 
don, 1910. 

The result of years of investigation. 

313 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The most accurate statistics and the most recent record of 
events will be found in the Encyclopcedia Britannica, Eleventh 
Editiony in the Statesman's Year-Book, in the Annual Register y 
and in the official publications of the various governments. 
The American Review of Reviews prints each month a reason- 
ably accurate detailed chronology of the month just past. 
Its permanent value is lessened by the fact that it is neces- 
sarily based upon the newspaper reports. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



FEB 28 1913 



